CHCS Perspectives Winter 2014

PERSPECTIVES • WINTER 2014 – Page 43 SGA Class of 2015 Having been enrolled in the Physician Assistant Program for a mere five months, many members of my class (Orlando PA, 2015) are still in the process of figuring out what does and does not work for them in terms of study habits. For some, it has proven equally difficult to balance our scholastic lives with everything that happens outside our classroom walls. Actually, balance is a poor word choice—for the most part, we’d settle for having some extracurricular involvement in the first place. That’s where the Student Government Association (SGA) comes in. After a summer semester fairly devoid of SGA-scheduled events—because, let’s face it, we didn’t know what we were doing in those first few months any more than anyone else— we’ve slowly begun to put together several small-scale events for our classmates. In doing so, we have attempted to keep two main conditions in mind; they need to be rewarding, and they need to be accessible. The former is relatively easy to satisfy. After all, as a class of 27-year-old (on average) aspiring health care workers, we still derive some satisfaction from the types of activities com- mon to high school and undergraduate environments, in ad- dition to the gratification that comes from being of assistance to those in need. The latter condition—accessibility—is slightly more complex. We have to bring the fun to the class. In general, the members of my class don’t have a lot of free time. We have class each day from 8:00 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon. Add on at least an hour of commuting and likely studying for an exam the next morning, and it’s easy to see why participating in fun, school-sponsored activities wouldn’t be a priority. For this reason, we have made it a pri- ority to organize activities and drives that can be enjoyed with a minimal time commitment. To this point, that has included an Adopt-a-Family drive in support of the Harbor House, which is an Orlando-area shel- ter for women and families affected by domestic violence. I’m proud to say we were able to generate enough supplies to keep a family of four comfortable for the entire length of its stay. We also were able to form a team of almost 20 individuals to participate in the March Against Breast Cancer 5K in Octo- ber, raising nearly $1,000. While most of our SGA-sponsored activities thus far have been small in scale, they have been large in impact. We’ve got- ten bang for our buck, and that’s a strategy we’re sticking with as we put together ideas for the rest of the academic year. Getting Our Feet Wet By Jeremy Lamb, B.S., Student Government Association President, Class of 2015 Meet the PA Orlando SGA class of 2015: James Nguyen (AAPA representative), Elizabeth Perkins-Hayes (secretary), Jeremy Lamb (president), Michelle Hopkins (events coordinator), Stephanie Breuer (treasurer), Haley Appel (FAPA representative), Lauren Rivera (diversity commissioner), Candice Behm (vice president), and Rohan Swanston (historian). Continued on the next page...