We sat down with Liz Racine to discuss her favorite things about college, Her Campus, and Boston. Read on to help us say goodbye to our editor-in-chief!
Her Campus Emmanuel: Thank you so much for meeting with us!
Liz Racine: No problem!
HCE: Okay, so first things first, what degree will you be graduating with?
LR: I’m a double major in elementary education and liberal arts, with a minor in Spanish. I’m going to be licensed to teach grades 1 through 6, and I like grades 2, 3, and 4.
HCE: Nice! What are your plans for after graduation?
LR: To be employed, hopefully [laughs]. I’m going to look for a regular teaching job and hope to stay in the Boston area, or at least an urban setting. I would like to be teaching, but there’s a chance I might get a job as a paraprofessional, so we’ll see what happens, but I’d like to just be teaching. Oh, and over the summer I work at a summer camp.
HCE: Speaking of being in Boston, what are your favorite places to go in Boston?
LR: Boston’s just the best, always. I really like to be down by the Charles [River]. I like to sit down there and just hang out, but recently I like to go running down there. It was like a goal of mine to be someone who runs by the Charles, because there’s always people down there and they just look so active [laughs]. I love the Charles, that’s one of my favorites. Actually, I’m a big fan of the Brookline area. I did my student teaching in Brookline and my sister lived in Brookline, so I’m familiar with the area. I like to go down Beacon Street to Coolidge Corner. That’s a really great spot with a lot of good places to eat. There’s a good crepe place, The Paris Creperie, and a bookstore that I love, The Brookline Booksmith. And right here, I love the Fenway area. Obviously, I’m a big proponent of getting out and exploring the city, but if you don’t and you just stick around here, there’s still so much going on. There’s so many great things right here.
HCE: What is your favorite thing about going to school in Boston, specifically?
LR: Oh, god, that’s a hard question. I think my favorite thing is there’s so much to do off campus and on campus, and that I don’t need a car to get places. So many of my friends at other schools are like, “We’re going to go to wherever on the weekend but we need someone to drive us so we can get there,” but I love that we can walk everywhere. That’s my favorite thing. You don’t even need to rely on the MBTA, which is not always your friend. So, I love being able to walk everywhere. And [I love] that there’s so many young people here; it’s such a college town, and it’s nice. I feel at home.
HCE: What would advice would you give to your freshman self?
LR: Definitely to get involved, and to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible. Because when I came in, I was so nervous about being at college, and I was like “Oh, I just need to focus on my academics, and settle in and make friends.” But I was so bored! Sophomore year, I got really involved on campus, and I think it would’ve been even better if I had done it sooner because that ended up being where I met most of my friends and had the most memorable experiences with all my involvement. I was also afraid to take an on-campus job my first year because I thought, “I don’t want to overload myself,” but I should’ve. And that’s been something that I really enjoyed and I feel like I’ve grown a lot from my work experiences. So, don’t be afraid to get involved right away. Immerse yourself in college culture. You’re going to be there, so commit. You’re going to be able to find things that speak to you, so don’t be afraid to try things. It’s funny, when Sammy approached me about Her Campus sophomore year, I was really iffy. I remember she approached me in the Muddy, and asked me to sign a petition, and I was like,  “Um, maybe,” and she was like, “It just says that you support the club. You might want to write, or you can just read it.” I said I would definitely read it, but I didn’t think I would get involved. And then somehow, I get involved [laughs]. But it was a really good decision!
HCE: Going off of that, how has being a member of Her Campus impacted your college experience?
LR: It’s just been so fun because I’ve always really liked to write, but I never really had an outlet. When I was a kid, I used to write a lot of short stories that never really went anywhere [laughs]. But I’ve always really enjoyed writing. We didn’t really have a club like this at my high school; we just had a newspaper, and I wasn’t really into that. Until we started Her Campus here, we didn’t really have something like that at Emmanuel either. I really like that you can do anything with it. You can write an article about literally anything, and that’s been really fun. That’s always something that I toyed with in my head as a career that I might want to pursue, so it’s been great to be able to actually do it. I would’ve loved to take extra English courses, but I’ve never had the time. This is definitely an interest I’ve had but never really pursued, so it’s been really fun, and Sammy is the best. I’m so impressed that she was able to start all of this. It’s become so successful.
HCE: What is your favorite Emmanuel campus event?
LR: There’s so many good ones! I am a big fan of Moonlight Breakfast, because breakfast food, in my opinion, is superior to all food. And I don’t think you can go here and not get involved with Dance Marathon. I was never super involved in it, but I did participate in it in some way every year. It’s just such a nice community event. That’s the number one thing that shows how our community comes together, I think. We’re able to do so much, which blows my mind every year. Every year when they reveal those numbers, I’m speechless that we were able to raise that much money. We raised the most money in the Boston area, and we’re the second top funding school in the Northeast. That’s crazy!
HCE: Yeah, that is crazy! What was your favorite Emmanuel memory?
LR: There’s so many! I have really enjoyed working as an Admissions Ambassador, giving tours and working events. It’s been the best thing that I did with my time here. It’s just such a great feeling after tours to have people say that they love the school. It’s so nice to hear other people fall in love with Emmanuel like I have, and to know that I hopefully played a positive part in it [laughs]. I remember one time talking to a student on accepted students day, and just asking, “How’s your day going? What do you think?” And she was like, “It’s been so great, I’m going to make my deposit right now!” It wasn’t me that did that, but you know, that was a nice moment. So, definitely working admissions has been great.
Seeing Her Campus grow has been a really great thing. Like I said, I remember the moment Sammy started this whole thing, and seeing how much it’s grown and how many people are at our meetings is crazy. All the content we’ve put out has been great and the fact that people actually know who we are is amazing. I’ve had friends say to me, “I saw that article you wrote, that was cool,” and that’s awesome. I’m really impressed with what we’ve done here.
I also think that the fact that so many of the people I met at orientation are still my friends is one of my favorite things to tell people about Emmanuel. Some of the girls in my orientation group and I all followed the same major path, and they’re still some of my great friends now. We’ve created so many memories, all of us. It’s such a small school, it’s such an Emmanuel thing that they’re still my friends! We’ve had a lot of memories, our little group of friends.
All of my student teaching last semester was a wonderful memory, too, but namely my unit on the Hopi people of Arizona. We worked on it for a month, and it was so great to see it all come together for their final creative writing project, because they were all supposed to write about everything we learned. They did such an amazing job, and the parents came in to see all their work. That was such a proud moment because that was my unit, you know, like I did the whole thing, and they really enjoyed it and it was awesome. That was a great moment.
Thank you so much Liz for all you’ve done for HCE! Best of luck to you in your future endeavors, and we hope to see you teaching in the future!