This week, The Paly Voice sat down with the newly elected Freshman President Caroline Furrier to discuss her goals, thoughts on leadership and love for sports.
The Paly Voice: What inspired you to run for class president?
Caroline Furrier: I really like helping other people, and since I’m the third of four children in my family, I’ve always been kind of stuck in the middle of situations and have had to solve things on my own and with my family. So that’s always kind of motivated me to help other people and just get issues solved.
PV: What do you like about Associated Student Body?
CF: I really like ASB so far because everything is very particular. I like how everybody thinks of every possible situation, so then [we] can make the school the best that we can. I really like that because I’m a bit of a perfectionist myself, so I think it’s really awesome that everybody just goes the extra mile just to make a good school community.
PV: Have you been a part of student government before?
CF: Last year I was Spirit Leader at Jordan.
PV: Has anything from middle school carried over in terms of student government?
CF: Not nearly as much as what Paly does obviously, because Paly spirit is so much more of a big deal, but we used to do a lot of spirit activities. I learned how to plan really well, get feedback from people and communicate with people, asking [for] their opinions a lot.
PV: How is Paly different than middle school?
CF: I would say that I really like Paly a lot more than middle school because I feel like you get a chance to meet a lot of new people and you also have a lot more freedom. The teachers seem to trust you a lot more, which I like, because it makes you feel like you kind of matter more and I think that’s really awesome. It’s a really open place to be.
PV: How do you plan to help make your class successful in Spirit Week?
CF: I really think that communication is key. So far, we’ve been trying to get it [information about Spirit Week] out to the freshmen, although nobody really knows what they’re doing yet. It’s a really big deal here at Paly and I think what we have to do is just get everybody to know that it’s okay to just go all out. I plan to just let everybody know and just be as organized as I can to get everybody really pumped to be spirited.
PV: How do you think communication issues, especially the lack of Facebook use among freshmen, is going to affect Spirit Week?
CF: I actually came across that problem a lot so far because the older grades use Facebook way more than we do. Nobody really had Facebook before going into high school, and they usually only made it for like Trivia Crack or some game or something. What we’ve been doing is been posting on Instagram or Snapchat. In a way it’s kind of good because you can communicate face-to-face a little bit more and get to know more people. I’ve been going around trying to advertise meetings and tell them what’s going on. To some random people that I know are freshmen, but I don’t know very well. I can introduce myself, which is nice because I meet new people, but it’s a little bit of a problem when you can’t get it out to everybody because you can’t find everybody by face-to-face. It’s not as quick, of course.
PV: What are your interests outside of school?
CF: I play soccer all the time. Every day I’m playing soccer, so that’s probably the biggest part of my life right now. I really like to read, so I’m a little bit of a book nerd, but I also do like just doodling and art. It’s something that I really enjoy.
PV: What lessons have you learned from soccer that you think will help you as a member of ASB?
CF: I actually think soccer contributes a lot to being a leader. If you’re on the soccer field, and you don’t know how to demand things and communicate with your teammates, you probably wouldn’t be able to play soccer for that long in your life. It’s a huge thing on the field. You have to be able to just tell people what you want. The whole part about being a teammate and working together is really important. Being in ASB is a lot about doing that. You have to communicate really well and understand what people want and need.
PV: Anything else you want our readers to know about?
CF: I want people to know that a main reason I also wanted to run for ASB is that I really care about helping other people… I want people to know that I’m always here no matter what, even if you don’t know me, know who I am, have never talked to me [or] never seen me even. I always want people to know that I represent them and I really care about helping them. If it’s anything at all, I’m always here to help.