Though Junior Class President Natalie Parks was not initially interested in attending Texas A&M, she has become incredibly involved and is even working to establish a new tradition for the junior class.
Now a communication junior, Parks is a Denton native who was hesitant to come to Aggieland. She applied to many other schools, but was ultimately persuaded to look into A&M by her mom, who wanted her to have the sense of community and tradition that she had never felt in college. Parks’ mom taught her about the university and its traditions and persuaded her to join the Texas A&M Class of 2022 Facebook page. The site connected Parks with other Aggies and ultimately led her down the path to being an Aggie herself.
Parks said she submitted a brief introduction to the page and received a direct message shortly after, asking if she wanted to join the Class of 2022 GroupMe.
“Joining that GroupMe was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life,” Parks said. “Two days after I joined the GroupMe, I attended a meetup in Frisco and then committed to A&M the day after that. I had never visited campus, I had never set foot in Aggieland, but it was the community which was created in a group chat that changed my mind about Texas A&M.”
After accepting admission to A&M, Parks said she was so redass she ended her high school graduation speech with “Thanks and gig ‘em.”
“It was so cool to hear other Aggies answer with ‘whoop’ in the audience,” Parks said. “I just knew that A&M was where I was meant to be.”
Once she arrived in Aggieland, Parks said she knew she wanted to be involved all around campus.
“I’ve been in Liberal Arts Student Council, Fish Council and am a Kappa Delta,” Parks said. “I was in student government as the vice president of communications last year in Mikey Jaillet’s cabinet. I also just started a role as the Collegiate Panhellenic Council vice president.”
Parks said she has wanted to run for class president since her freshman year, but decided against it because she didn’t want to face the intense competition.
“Sophomore year, I ended up not running because the person that was freshman class president the year before decided to run again unopposed,” Parks said. “But in the middle of the year, I got a call from that class president saying he wanted to go on a study abroad and wouldn’t have time to properly pursue the role. He said he was looking for people to fill the spot and asked me if I was interested.”
After stepping into the role, Parks said she sat down and brainstormed what her goals were going to be.
“My biggest goal outside of my obligation as class president to establish a sense of community is to establish a new class tradition for the juniors, since there currently isn’t one,” Parks said. “We have two big ideas in the works. One of them is actually happening right now, which is our upperclassmen sweatshirt project.”
Parks said the project is being called a “tradition piece,” something that celebrates being a junior. The number that’s on the sleeve this year is 22, then next year it will be 23, and so on.
“The proceeds from the sweatshirt sales will go toward the class gift, but the project also serves as a way to connect the class,” Parks said. “We’ve received a lot of positive feedback, and so far, people are really excited about it.”
Parks said the opportunity to serve as junior class president has been everything she wanted since she stepped foot on campus.
“It’s my favorite thing that I’ve ever done, and being able to serve my class and the Aggie community in this way has been so special,” Parks said.