While most of the Institute’s campus sleeps, Shavani Virani is wide awake, making a quick breakfast after her early morning workout to start her day. Virani, fourth-year NUER, is different from most students at the Institute for one main reason: she is president of the Student Government Association (SGA).
Despite being so influential on campus, her work may sometimes go unnoticed, and many may not know what exactly her role entails. The Technique sat down with Virani to get her view on her role and how she approaches the task.
“I feel like I’m the face of the student body per se, and kind of that student voice when it comes to representing Georgia Tech, whether that be internally with admin or faculty or even externally, like Georgia Tech as a whole,” Virani said.
As one can imagine, being the head representative of the study body of the Institute comes with a lot of responsibilities and obligations.
“What I do on a day to day really entails anything internally like managing our three branches, having meetings with my executive cabinet, trying to figure out how we want to delegate the projects and opportunities and kind of things that pop up,” Virani said.
SGA is a large organization with executive, legislative, and judicial branches — all led by Virani — but her time isn’t just spent on internal work.
“Externally, I meet with admin, give my input after hearing from different students around campus, trying to hear that student perspective on different issues, and making sure that voice is heard in different meetings and different settings,” Virani said.
As SGA president, Virani is a student here and starts off most days in class. While other students are rushing to get out the door and make it to class on time, Virani has already started on some homework, spending the time catching up between classes.
It’s important for students to know that being SGA president is not about work all of the time. Virani makes time to do what she loves, even with her big commitments.
“I play lacrosse on the club team, volunteer at the Shepherd Center, and I also work as a medical assistant,” Virani said.
With so many commitments and responsibilities, it can be hard to find enough hours in the day to make time for everything.
“It’s gonna sound silly, but I feel like keeping your calendar up to date is really so important,” Virani said. “It gives me a visual representation of how much time I have in the day and how I can break that time down.”
Time management is an important skill for any college student. Juggling classes, extracurriculars, and social life puts pressure on many students, but adding the extra influence and responsibility of being SGA president makes Virani’s time management skills all the more important.
“I came to Georgia Tech to be a student first and foremost. And so I really make school my biggest priority, like, always making sure that I have time to study, do everything I need to do, and then whatever time I have left with that really just goes, kind of trickles down to the rest of the stuff I’ve been involved in,” Virani said.
Understanding all of Virani’s responsibilities can make it hard for people to believe she has the same number of hours in the day as everyone else.
“I have a lot of meetings with different admin and faculty on campus. It is a very random schedule. It kind of depends on the day, what meetings I have to attend, if there’s different committees that meet once a week or once a month, random coffee chats I have to go to or different events,” Virani said.
Like other presidents of organizations big and small, there is a commonality of tasks that must be completed in a day, crises must be averted, meetings come up and emails must be sent. Virani uses her afternoon time to focus on her duties as SGA president.
As SGA president, Virani is incredibly entrenched in the Institute’s campus and knows the ins and outs of just about everything. Her love for the Institute is papabile.
“It’s allowed me to kind of understand there’s so much, so many moving parts to this campus, and you don’t realize, like if one part stops moving, how much it can affect like so many other parts of campus,” Virani said.
Virani knows the best place to have coffee or, in her case, a hot chocolate is Kaldi’s, Price Gilbert 3 is the best study spot on campus, Campus Crust makes amazing pasta bowls, and the Freshman Cake Race is the best of the Institute’s traditions.
“I’m a big sports fan. So, I’m a very big fan of Georgia Tech football, and I love homecoming weekend. It’s not even just about football, but like seeing alumni back on campus and everyone just kind of having so much fun over that weekend and so many other events,” Virani said.
As SGA president — despite the pressure — Virani seems to thrive under it and greatly enjoys the impact she has on the campus and its students.
“I felt like this was a role that would allow me to make the biggest impact on campus. That’s kind of what inspired me to want to pursue this,” Virani said.