Sarah Leyva
Contributing Writer
“Insightful, challenging and cheerful” are the words Erika Noel used to describe her experience as SGA president of Broward College Central Campus for almost two terms in office. After having a one-on-one with her, she was able to give me an inside look of what it means to be president, some of her responsibilities and a little bit about who she is outside of SGA.
Noel was born in Ft. Lauderdale, and attended Boyd Anderson High School, before attending the University of Central Florida, but soon after that she realized that Broward College was a better fit for her.
Noel best puts it,” Broward College was the best option because I got to grow up a little more financially and mentally, before I go on to a bigger university where I’m completely on my own and disconnected from my family.”
She is currently on her premed track studying biomedical engineering and is planning to transfer to USF. Outside of school, she enjoys reading, watching anime and Netflix dramas, and dancing which she also did in high school as well.
Before her start in SGA at Broward College, she had actually been a part of her high school’s SGA junior and senior year, even though she had that prior experience in SGA in high school she described them both as being different but both still with that common goal.
Noel described it as being, “a servant leader serving the students and representing your class and always holding their best interest at heart.”
When starting at Broward she wanted to find a club that would really help put herself out there and meet new people. She saw SGA being the best fit for her because it was something she had already done two years before and she saw it as a place she could grow and become a better leader, and she describes SGA as being, “home in a sense.”
She describes her being able to live the best of both worlds by being able to do something in the field of politics but still studying in her field of medicine, based on her view on life which she describes as,“ there is only one life you get to live so it is so important to experience as many things as you can.”
She began her passion in politics in high school when she joined a club called Youth in Government, and she realized she had an interest in this career experience and she decided to join SGA after that, but she still knew she wanted to do medicine.
She describes SGA as being “a great place to meet people, to build connections and to really meet people who are on the same path as you and give you really good life advice.
Noel was able to talk about some of the projects she and her team have been able to accomplish as well as upcoming projects.
She said how Student Life and SGA collaborate to accomplish projects at school. In last fall alone, they had 120 projects, with the help of Student Life they are able to make these events happen.
Noel was the head for one of the projects, Constitution Day, and was able to give the student body a fun way to look at the constitution. She also helped put together the other events.
Because of the impact Covid-19 has had on everything including school when it comes to remote learning, much of the original plans had to be changed for spring semester and redesigned into now virtual events for students.
She said even though SGA has changed platforms their main goal is to “develop holistic students in the sense that we want them to be well rounded and to have all eight of the factors that it takes to be a healthy human.”
She discussed the issue now with COVID-19 how it really changed the way they can reach out to students and now they’re making social media their biggest platform to reach students, which has definitely made her and the rest of SGA think outside of the box.
Lastly, I asked her what her advice would be to the next SGA president.
“Always take advantage of the resources you are given, and not assume that you have to do everything on your own.”
