Profile Ideas:

  1. New Women’s Lacrosse assistant coach Erica Letellier
  2. Student EMT Liam Prescott
  3. Tristin Durgan UNE athletic director

Pitch:

  1. What is your role here at UNE exactly?
  2. Is there someone that leads you to be or act as the person you are?
  3. How does this position affect your everyday life as a student here at UNE?
  4. Why are you in this position? What do you like about it? Are there cons to the job?
  5. How has this position shaped you into the person you are today? 
  6. Who or what has inspired you to do what you do? Someone on this campus?
  7. What else do you do on campus?
  8. Why exactly UNE? Why not another school? 

As I interview Kaitlyn Quirk the president of the sophomore class, I expect to be talking about her position here at UNE. How she got the position and what she does to maintain the position or how it affects her. I will try to get in contact with someone that has worked with Kaitlyn in the past and knows how hard she works.  I would love to dive into her past to see what events have occurred to allow her to apply for this position. I would also like to see what else she does in the background that helps her gain the skills she needs for her to have the position she has. Kaitly has agreed to let me talk to her and dive a bit into her past to see where she has come from.  I already know her academic life being someone I see on campus, knowing she’s a smart persistent and determined woman I would like to know if she has a person she has learned those skills from. 

Early Draft

Kaitlyn Quirk, a New Hampshire resident of 20 years stepped onto the Biddeford campus ready to make an impact. Kaitlyn is the 2022 class president for the second year in a row this year, and also a part of many other things. 

Kaitlyn is a tour guide her on campus, as you will see her on Tuesdays and Thursdays parading around the campus in her tour guide flannel. Along with that she 

At home, Kaitlyn has one older sister Arianna, 26, who was diagnosed with down syndrome. Kaitlyn has learned the importance of this at a very young age. She grew a passion for helping others with a similar diagnosis, so she joined Special Olympics.  As she did this, her love for being a leader grew. 

She also has a 16-year-old sister, who is a private school to focus on her very accomplishing athletic gift. Kaitlyn is very close to her family and relies heavily on their opinion of situations and decisions she makes. 

In High school…..

Now as Kaitlyn has grown up and entered the world of adulthood she made the decision to continue her education at the University of New England in HOWAS. As she studies in the difficult field she is in, she hopes it will all pay off once she becomes…. 

Before workshop:

Kaitlyn Quirk, a New Hampshire resident of 20 years stepped onto the Biddeford campus ready to make an impact. Kaitlyn is the 2022 class president for the second year in a row this year, and also a part of many other things. 

At first, Kaitlyn wasn’t actually sure if she wanted to be the class president, but it was the first thing she saw advertised on campus when she came for orientation. She told her dad about it and he said to do it, it would be a really great way to meet people and make friends. And so she did. And, she won. 

Being the president of the class is not as easy as one might think. As she is constantly running around to meetings, she is also responding to emails, planning events, and trying to catch her breath scheduling free time into her schedule. Even if she schedules that free time, she might not get it. If something goes wrong with planning an event, or someone needs more help preparing for a meeting, that all falls on Kaitlyn. She gets more stressed out than people would think. 

At home, Kaitlyn has one older sister Arianna, who is diagnosed with down syndrome. Kaitlyn has learned the importance of this at a very young age. She grew a passion for helping others with a similar diagnosis, so she joined Unified sports.  As she did this, her love for being a leader grew. 

Unified sports is a year-round program of students with disabilities to compete against each other in track and field, soccer and basketball. Kaitlyn loved doing this, and it had to lead her to make the decision of what she wants to do with the rest of her life. 

As Kaitlyn grew up she was constantly looking to her dad for advice and help with her academics “my dad is just someone that I have always looked up to”. Kaitlyn has said that her dad is someone that has her ack 24 hours of the day, every day. He has made her into the person she is, has made her more confident, and “he truly believes that I am capable of doing anything”. Bill Quirk had told her that he wants nothing but for her to succeed and to see her prosper and get what she wants. Kaitlyn said that her dad has pushed her to be the best person she can be, and that’s part of the reason why she has stuck with the position she has for so long. 

Kaitlyn has now entered the world of adulthood she made the decision to continue her education at the University of New England in HOWAS. As she studies in the difficult field she is in, she hopes it will all pay off once she enters the field of pediatrics and working with kids that have disabilities similar to her sister. With the challenging academics, Kaitlyn is being held too sometimes it’s hard to balance her work from homework. “At the end of the day I am a student first, I have academics to worry about”.

But, as she is challenged, she has improved her overall self as well. Kaitlyn was worried when she first won the position about how she will be able to communicate with others and how she would be able to control thigs. But now, as a sophomore in the same position, she has grown maturity, time management, and people skills. She loves being someone that has a voice and can have an impact on things changing. “I had a lot of growing to do, I was passionate about where I was, I felt in my heart that I could do this job so I am, I felt that I had a voice that could lead 800 other fellow classmates, so I am speaking up”.

For what she does on campus on top of being president, is a tour guide her on campus, as you will see her on Tuesdays and Thursdays parading around the campus in her tour guide flannel leading a group of possible new Nor’Easters.“Tour guide is a different idea, these students are making an extremely large decision for their life, and it’s big for their family, so hearing what they have to say about the campus helps the other tour guides and I adjust to the needs of them”. Kaitlyn wants to hear feedback on the campus so she can bring this to the school. For example, there have been many families that brought us the fact that the freshman quad is not handicap accessible at all. She enjoys working with new students, which is why she is also an orientation leader.

 Orientation leaders are people who are here over the summer leading a group of new commits to the University. “Orientation helps me kind of encapsulate what is important to students because I am hearing them say what they want to happen right out of high school” said Kaitlyn. 

Kaitlyn gets the opportunity to work with new students that are either first years or on tour. “Things new students say are things I can bring right to my board, I can change how this school does somethings depending on what the students want”. Kaitlyn loves all of the roles she plays for the reason of being able to be a person that new students can tell her what they want and she can pass it on. “I hear what is important to them, in and around campus” and “It’s different from just hearing the voices of my fellow classmates” she said.

workshop experience:

I think that in this difficult time, the way that we have adjusted this class just might work. I liked being able to read everyone’s thoughts and inputs on my writing, everyone had really positive feedback and I didn’t make me feel stupid or like I did a bad job. The only negative thing I have to say about this part of the class and not being face to face is not really being able to ask the person to clarify something. Like Ravin for example, she gave me great feedback and help on how to organize my piece better but she said “information from paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 6 & 7 to tell us who she is and where she came from; information about her as class president; information about her as a tour guide; information about her as an orientation leader; information about how she manages her time.” Does that mean take out paragraphs 2 and 3? I know I can email if I am really confused about things. Other comments that I got were mostly about the organization of my piece because I asked for help on that. I got a lot of good feedback by people saying that it isn’t necessarily poorly organized but maybe just unfinished thoughts. As Jack said, I should finish one paragraph or story completely before moving on to the next, and that has always been a struggle for me. The next thing I got a lot of comments on was the use of outside quotes, from people other than Kaitlyn. Originally I had a meeting set up with a coworker/boss of hers for after the break, so obviously that didn’t happen. I will be reaching out to her soon to see if she is still available to work with me on this, if not I will move to her family. I know someone said to possibly try and get a quote from her dad about how and why he pushes her to do so well, and I didn’t even think about that so that’s my backup plan. 

Editorial Team Reflection:

As I look back at the editorial comments that I have personally made on my fellow students I notice a trend in the comments that I make.I break it down in order, and so do many other people in the class. I start by talking about the introduction or lead that the person has. I noticed that Ravin does this as well. To me, it made it easier to organize my thoughts and figure out what to focus on. Last workshop that we did, I felt that I wasn’t sure what to talk about, what to comment on, or what to edit. So this way I was able to talk about the lead, then talk about the angle, then talk about the use of quotes etc. I also felt that when I did that, I could see a pattern of other peoples comments with mine. I was able to relate to the way the comment on the way introduced their piece or I was able to agree with them. And this was the hard part. Because we can meet face to face it’s hard to piggyback off of someone’s comment, or even comment on their thoughts. This is hard because people are posting their feedback and comments at all different times. Someone can post a comment and I can agree and make a comment back and post it. But then someone else can make another comment that I want to touch on even after I posted my comment. Comparing my journals from this workshop and last workshop, I feel that I have really improved on the comments that I give. The second round I was able to gain more confidence because I learned a lot about editing. The second round, I felt more confident to make editing comments, and more confident to put my input into the “conversation”. Overall, I think as a class, we all gained confidence and were able to give even better feedback. 

Profile Story Reflection:

I really enjoyed this profile piece. I was able to work with someone who was very accommodating, very open and creative with her words. I think that the entire class had some new ways to get used too, but everyone did really well keeping up with deadlines, and was still able to get their fair share of work done. For the workshop, obviously not being able to meet face to face hurt us, but we made it work. We were able to give and get the feedback we need doing the workshop revision journals. I think those were a vital piece to this process. Being able to read one’s essay, and the type out things they needed to improve on was difficult, and almost frustration. I would write out comments in homes that they made sense to the person that was reading them. I would write something out and then reread it and delete what I wrote and rewrite it because it didn’t make any sense. If we were face to face it would be a lot easier to explain what we meant out loud. I also miss the part of being able to piggyback off of other people, I think that we all worked really well together. And sometimes in class, someone would say something and make me think of something to add in even if I didn’t write it in my workshop journal. Getting comments from the class was really good. I was able to get a lot of feedback about the organization of my piece and use that to fix things. I also got feedback on the angle of my story, it seemed confusing on what exactly I was focusing on. That was really useful feedback that I was able to take into consideration. Overall I think the entire class did really well with adapting to the new ways of this class in such a short amount of time. I really enjoyed this project.