“I have a plan for what I want out of my four years and won’t stop until I get it.”
Meet Rilee Robinson, an ambitious, implausibly intelligent and ennoble ASU student with some rock solid values. She is a double major, Journalism and Political Science, and not to mention she is a Barett student. For those of you who may not know what Barett is, it is ASU’s honors college that is ranked among one of the most prestigious in the country.
Get your pen and note book out now because I am about to disclose some of Rilee’s brilliant advice that everyone should make an effort to abide by daily. “My strongest set of values are integrity, country and confidence. I think integrity is all encompassing – it is what you do when no one is watching. Integrity defines all of us, I want to be transparent with who I am and not change faces based on whom I am around. Country is natural for me, I am highly patriotic. I get so pepped up just seeing an American flag and want to channel the love for this nation everyday to reach my goals of serving it one day in some way. Confidence is another huge value of mine. There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence, however, believing in yourself and your ideas is a key to success. I try to love myself so that I can make others believe in me as well. From rush to first day of classes, I had confidence that I would be my best and make others see the best in me.”
Unlike most freshmen, Rilee lives on ASU’s Downtown Campus where the environment is more than a tad different. “I love taking classes Downtown, the serious environment gets me in a work mode making it pretty easy to stay on top of things,” she said. Like most Downtown students though, Rilee is involved with activities on the Tempe campus and things can get complicated when it comes to transportation and having enough time. “I am, however, moving to Tempe next year. Because of my sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, I have to commute a lot at night for meetings and sisterhood events which gets tiring. I love the carefree feel of Tempe but am glad I have a major in a highly professional setting, after all that is why we are here,” she said.
Double majoring, living in a constantly intense, professional environment and attending one of the nation’s toughest honors colleges can be a lot of pressure, which is why you can find a lot of students who are a part of a larger community for support and relief from the every day grind. As Rilee mentioned earlier, she is a member of ASU Greek Life and has been enjoying it every step of the way. “I haven’t been involved with Theta for too long, I just joined in September, but so far the experience has been amazing,” she said. There are so many ways to get involved within my sorority which is amazing since I am just a freshman. I was a chair for homecoming (we placed second-which is pretty cool) and plan on getting involved with Greek Week and founders day committees in the spring.”
The girl may be a natural born leader, but she had some inspiration in her decision to go Greek, “I have an older cousin who was a Theta at Texas Tech. Seeing how much she loved her experience made me want to be involved. She always had people to rely on throughout college and even now. I know it’s insanely corny but I wanted that. I also have a little sister and I knew it would be hard to leave her. I thought maybe having 100 other sisters here would help.”
“I have became involved with Theta, which is the largest chapter on campus so I have a family of 200 who all know me. Being in greek life I have a community of more than just Thetas – I have a community of the other chapters too,” Rilee said. Aside from taking on leadership roles in her sorority, Rilee has a passion for ASU’s Student Government. She knew before arriving to Phoenix in the fall that she was going to do her best to become immersed USGD. “I am very passionate about politics and wanted to help others get more involved. I really believe our generation holds the country’s future in our hands and we get to shape the next era. For me, USGD is the first step to doing that,” she said.
Her passion for public service has led her to landing an impressive public relations internship with the USGD policy department. “When I found out I got the internship I was super excited because it would give me a ton of really neat opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise. My jobs as the PR state advocate intern are super fun (for me anyway, but I’m a nerd with this stuff). I get to write press releases for the department, create weekly info-graphics, correspond with state senators and defend bills before the USGD senate. It has been a great way to perfect skills I had coming into ASU as well as learning new ones. While I am a journalism major, I am focusing in Public Relations. PR is a little different than normal journalism, it’s a business spin mixed with writing and social media. I love getting to work with all aspects of the media, from writing to photoshop to even advertising,” Rilee said, “It is constantly a new job so I don’t ever get bored.”
Rilee noted that she did not become such a (in my words) respectable, driven and inspiring girl all on her own, “I have had incredibly supportive parents and they have taught me to make my own place in the world, and not expect opportunities to come to me.” Like most people during any type of transition, she had had her fair share of struggles. “I had a rough transition to high school after junior high (like most kids) and decided I did not want to have a bad experience,” Rilee said. However, what makes her different than most is that she picked herself back up. “I quickly quit moping and decided the best way to transition was to get involved. Ever since then I can’t stop. As soon as I join an organization I immediately want to start leading. We all have social struggles, academic struggles and occasional family drama but its what we decide to do with those experiences that define the path we will be on after,” Rilee said.
I will leave you with some very honest but doubtlessly life changing words from this Campus Celebrity, “Happiness is a choice, I have had to learn that the hard way”.