For the fifth blog in this series, Marketing and Communications Officer Emelia Delaporte reflects on her time at Virginia Tech, her involvement in student organizations, and what it means to be a Marching Virginian.
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Photo courtesy of Emelia Delaporte
How long have you been in the MVs and what is your role?
This will be my fourth season with the MVs, as well as my fourth year as an undergraduate. My role during this past season has been the Marketing and Communications Officer, and I will be reprising that this season. In addition to that, I have been a member of the piccolo section my entire time here.
What’s your degree program and how far along in it are you? I have been pursuing dual degrees, so that means instead of doing a double major, it's so many credits that they hand you two separate diplomas. I'm pursuing professional and technical writing, which is a major under the English department, and multimedia journalism, which falls under the School of Communication. In addition to those two programs, I've also been pursuing double minors in natural resources recreation and biodiversity conservation, both of which are housed in the College of Natural Resources and Environment.
Photo courtesy of Emelia Delaporte
What extracurriculars outside of the MVs did you engage in?
I started out freshman year with the Wildlife Society, the Bird Club, the National Deer Association, the Outdoor Club, the Collegiate Times, and Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine. I did Panhellenic for a semester and a summer. I've tried to narrow it down a bit since then. My sophomore year, I became an assistant section editor for the Lifestyles column the Collegiate Times — that was my main organizational focus outside of the MVs. My junior year, I ended up becoming the social media chair for the National Deer Association, lifestyles section editor for The Collegiate Times, and editor-in-chief of the Silhouette. This coming year, I'll be involved with the CT, the Silhouette, the Wildlife Society, the Bird Club, and WUVT, which is our student radio station. I also have done a lot of volunteer student research.
Photo courtesy of Emelia Delaporte (handled with permits)
Earlier, you mentioned student research. What have you been investigating?
Since my freshman year, I've been involved with the Wildlife Habitat and Population analysis lab, fondly known as WHAPA. With them, I've been doing camera trapping data entry since my freshman year, going through a bunch of pictures from cameras in Belize and helping folks identify jaguars and stuff like that. I was also briefly involved with a number of other projects, some of them centering around salamanders, birds, and trees. And then this past year, I've been involved with the Dayer Human Dimensions Lab. So in the spring, I was working on a shorebird disturbance project, and that's who I'm working with this summer. I'll also be working with them again in the fall.
How would you say the MVs impacted your time at Virginia Tech?
The MVs have always been something that was super special to me. The MVs gave me my friends for at least my freshman fall before I really got my legs under myself and was able to start branching out a little bit more into the university, and then they've been a home space to come back to every fall. It's definitely been my greatest social foundation while I've been in college.
How would you say being in another organization outside of the MVs has benefited you?
It’s taught me a lot about prioritization. There have been a lot of things that I would have loved to have done, but I've had to be a practice instead, like my involvement with Scouts BSA and the Order of the Arrow has kind of taken a backseat for the past couple of years because I've needed to be at practice. It's instilled more confidence in me that those organizations still want to be there for me when I have the time to be a part of them. It can be really gratifying to have to split your time between things like that, because it teaches you that those folks who you aren't able to be there with all the time actually care about you enough to say that, you're taking time away and that it’s okay. So it's taught me a lot about that, and just in general, it's given me a lot of time management skills.
Photo courtesy of Emelia Delaporte
What advice do you have for folks who are new to the MVs?
Don't feel left out because you're doing one thing when there's something else you could be doing. I remember my freshman year, I was so focused on, “oh my gosh, I can't be with my residence hall right now, like these people are all going to make friends, and I'm at practice. What am I going to do?” I ended up not being friends with them anyways, and that was probably for the better. So do the best you can to branch out and meet new people, but also recognize that if you can't be somewhere, it's not the end of the world. We all get busy. Setting yourself up in the fall with other clubs and things to keep yourself busy when the spring comes has been really essential, at least for my well-being and my organization during the school year.
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Emelia is from Tampa, Florida and worked this summer as a social science research assistant.