I had the pleasure of speaking to the Coordinator of Student Life, Chris Shemanski. I’m sure many readers, myself included, are skeptical as to what a “Coordinator of Student Life” does on campus, as well as how they feel about campus life. To quell this curiosity, I covered many topics with him including his role on campus and what it takes to be successful here at Stevens.
His role requires direct connection to students and student leaders of all types, along with clubs. “My title is the Coordinator of Student Life. I am basically the point person for all our student organizations and clubs on campus,” said Shemasnki. A relatively harder-than-average task considering the amount of communication required throughout campus, but with a bit of enthusiasm, anything can be accomplished, an outlook that Shemanski clearly shows.
On the topic of success, Shemanski has quite a bit to share, especially after being asked on what makes a model student. “A model student would be someone who finds balance in their lives, so that’s finding a passion academically and in a field where their strengths lie, but in a field they genuinely enjoy and offsetting that with involvement, because I think that part of being a student is being engaged in the co-curriculars and pursuing positions of leadership and just generally being involved,” said Shemanski. Balance in life and passion in profession, both ideas we as students would benefit from: “To me college is about finding yourself and finding what you are most passionate about, with that comes taking reasonable risks and whether or not that’s going outside of your comfort zone,” said Shemanski. With that he went into detail about the many aspects that go into broadening your horizons, which very well may be the path to success. Anything from joining a club you haven’t given a second thought of to talking to a new person you haven’t met before. Successful people have the habit of being comfortable in their uncomfortable zone.
