Bethany Adam ’15

While her winning smile may be just enough to spark your curiosity, Bethany Adam has lit up the Brandeis campus with her extraordinary input. You may know her as one of the Core Orientation Leaders, or the spunky LeFou in this semester’s 24 hour musical. However you recognize her, you may find yourself wondering: who’s that incredibly cheerful, overindulgently warm, and charismatic human being I see everywhere on campus? Okay, this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it takes no stretch of the imagination to understand why this campus celeb grabs our hearts and snatches our attention. Even while interviewing her, Andrew Flagel (Senior Vice President of Students & Enrollment) couldn’t help but stop by and have a chat with Miss Adam. Well now you can fulfill your dream too, check out our interview with this week’s campus star.

Major: Theater and Politics

Minor: Legal Studies

Her Campus: What are you involved in on campus?

Bethany Adam: I’m President of Up the Octave, I do a lot of theater on campus, I’m the Vice President of Tympanium Euphorium, Co-Coordinator for Deis Day- I’m planning an event for that. I’m also planning “Brandeis Cares,” as well as planning an event for next semester for sexual assault awareness. I work for SPS and the Office of Orientation too.

HC: Wow, that’s a lot. Why do you feel like you are so involved on campus?

BA: I came in as a midyear, and I loved it. I felt very welcomed and it was so easy for me to get involved in a lot of things right away. For me, it was an easy transition. As cliché as it sounds, I feel very at home here so I want to help others feel that way. Like all universities, Brandeis is an establishment, but it is also here to support us if people are willing to tap into those resources. I want to be a sort of a liaison between students and staff.

HC: You mentioned you were a midyear. Do you feel like that has made your experience different?

BA: I don’t know. It caught me so off guard that by the time I got here I was like, “Oh my god! I missed a semester, I have got to catch up!” So I feel like it might have given me a jumpstart that I might not have had if I came in the fall, but now, at this point, it’s kinda faded. I have pride and I want to help out other midyears, but it doesn’t really matter anymore.

HC: What kind of activities are you involved in off campus?

BA: Hmmm. Well, next semester I will be working with the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. They are assembling a panel of college students and they reached out to me. I don’t know what it is going to entail, but I am really excited to be working with them.

HC: What are your majors/minors and how do you want to apply them to a future career goal?

BA: I’m majoring in Theater and Politics and minoring in Legal Studies. I always tell people I want to be the first and youngest female president for two terms and then I want to have a career on Broadway. But if that doesn’t work out, I’m very interested in pursuing civil liberties, maybe working towards a seat on the Senate. Also, I could totally be a nutty theater professor, I’ll be just as happy.

HC: So let’s say you do become President of the United States, and you move into the White House. What are the first three things you do?

BA: 1. Have a dance party to Katy Perry in my underwear. 2. Set up meetings with the first five people who write me letters. 3. Video-chat my parents, but probably put some pants on first.

HC: You could go pantless.

BA: Funny you say that because my first day of school here at Brandeis, I walked all the way from the Village to Rabb with my dress tucked into my tights and nobody told me.

HC: That is horrible. I guess that leads me to the next question: single and available?

BA: Single. Ready to mingle.

HC: What is your ideal first date?

BA: Something relaxed that keeps the mood fun yet spontaneous, like competitive bowling. Really though, I just want an opportunity for us to talk and get to know each other!

• orientation leader