Insite and The Third Eye have come together this year in a collaboration to cover the KSU Election for Officer for Culture and Entertainment.
As media organisations, we thought it a good idea to interview each candidate to give both a fair chance at voicing their ideas should they be elected. By doing this, we also wanted to give students a chance at getting to know each candidate.
Below are the questions and the answers we received interviewing Krista Hili:
What made you decide to run for the role of Office for Culture and Entertainment?
It started last year, I participated in students fest and I saw the director at the time. I decided there and then that that was my goal, I was like: I want to be her! Eventually, this year, Heritan – the SDM president, and Jeremy, who is now the KSU president approached me about it and I didn’t think twice about it, I was like “Yes, I’ll do it of course!” and then I found out that Amy would be coordinator and that we would work together and so I wanted to do it even more, because we are such great friends and the opportunity to work with her in KSU would be amazing.
What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses?
Some of my strengths would be that I am a team player. As I said, if I would have Amy on my team I think we would have such a great relationship and work really well together. I am really sociable and friendly, in the cultural officer you have to be that way, since you work with so many different people, so many events, that you cannot be shy or reserved, you have to put yourself out there. My weaknesses would be that I am very organised, I would want things to be done a certain way and at a certain time, and when you are working with other people it is not always easy. People work in different ways and at different paces and they could not want the same things that I want so I have to be a bit more lenient when it comes to that perspective.
How good can you work under pressure?
I have learnt to deal with pressure quite well actually. I have been in SDM since I was 16, I grew up in student activism basically, and there were some high pressure situations where I had to be like “okay, let’s calm down”, I was the one calming people down, so I think I would work well in KSU, since it is such a big organisation that you have to learn to deal with pressure, you cannot be breaking when under pressure, you know.
What goals do you have in mind for any future projects?
Some of my goals, actually, are to bring back some of the events which have been lost such as Campus Fest and the Drive-in Cinema and we would really want to continue improving the events which are already there such as Students Fest, Treasure Hunt, these are all events which have more potential to grow and I would really want to see more students involved in them and ultimately bringing back life to university as it was. I think after the pandemic everything was dying down and hasn’t reached its peak yet – like okay maybe you have an event and like 40 people show up. We want students to be more involved in these events, because that’s what university life is about. Moreover, we would really want to encourage students talents, because there are so many talents at university which go unrecognised. We’d want to host more open-mic nights, that would encourage people, like okay here’s your platform you have an opportunity.
Are there any plans on your side to implement a sports fest?
I really want to yes. We had a meeting yesterday, coincidentally, with some sports organisations and they voiced that they do not feel like sports is recognised at university. We would want to do something, maybe not a sports week – as that would only be a week out of the year and then it would be over with. We would want to do something frequent with sports organisations. For example, yesterday we had a talk with UM Wolves, they would really love to do an open session, here at university, which would be a really good idea. Although it’s not in our manifesto, we would really want to formulate an idea and do something, it would encourage people to join sports organisations again, not just come to the event. I would love to do something like that – maybe not a sports week, maybe more frequent events. We’ll see in the future! I feel like there is a lot of events which have been forgotten and they could really be done well, you know, it doesn’t take much time, especially if you are collaborating, it could be really easy.
How much time are you willing to invest to improve current and future projects?
I will say, university life for me isn’t just going to lectures, studying and so on, I would love to do more. I love the culture office so I really want to dedicate my time – If I’m going to do something I am going to do it well. I am going to dedicate my time to it. If it’s something I love I will dedicate my time, if I didn’t love the culture office I wouldn’t. At the end of the day, when you graduate you won’t remember the lectures and the times spent studying, you’ll remember the events and the fun you had.
What are some accomplishments you are proud of and think make you eligible for this position?
I have been involved in performing arts and entertainment for a while. I went to drama lessons, vocal lessons and I’ve performed in different places, so I have an overall idea of the entertainment sector. My biggest accomplishment was last year’s students fest, I was the lead role, and it gave me so much confidence, I learnt so much. But even though I was the main role, I still wanted to see and learn what other sectors were doing – like band, dance, crew, I still wanted to get to know what they were doing. And it gave me so much knowledge, I learnt so many new skills which I didn’t know before. I think that makes me eligible for the culture and entertainment office.
In your manifesto you state that you wish to continue organising the annual students’ fest. Do you have any plans currently on how to better improve this year’s student fest?
Yes, I would really like to promote it more on a university level. The past exec did a really good job by doing a stand on freshers’ week, but I still found people telling me like “oh I didn’t know about this. What does it entail?” I really want to promote it more because it’s such a nice community, you meet so many great people from different courses and organisations. It’s a very great place to meet people and enjoy your university life, not just going to lectures as I said.
Find the article for the candidate Isaiah Riolo on our website!
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