Hello, my name is Aidah! I am the current co-president of Furman University\u2019s Muslim Student Association (MSA) on campus, as well as a former treasurer for the Religious Council. I grew up in South Carolina, and I spent most of my life living in Greenville. But since elementary school, I always noticed that I was one of the few Muslim students in class. Though I got along with my peers in middle school and high school, I aimed to help foster a space in college for Muslims like me to discuss and practice our religion. This is where I became involved with the Office of Spiritual Life (OSL).<\/p>\n
In my last year of high school, I realized that I wanted to attend Furman University. I saw a lot of benefits, such as having a strong pre-medicine track and offering undergraduate research, that interested me. But the aspect that differentiated Furman the most from other universities is its emphasis on its students. There were many clubs and organizations that catered to different interests, activities, and hobbies to students on campus, including religion. Along with challenging myself academically, I wanted to experience Furman\u2019s community and carve a space for students like me.<\/p>\n
During my first year of Furman, I became a member of MSA, but I did not know what else to do to help the organization. I learned about becoming a religious representative for MSA. A religious representative is a member who is meant to attend meetings for the Religious Council, a larger organization part of OSL consisting of all the religious clubs on campus. There, I got to learn about the other religious groups on campus. We discussed different ways we can collaborate to impact Furman and Greenville positively, such as hosting events discussing the different types of religions followed by Furman students and planning clothing\/food drives.<\/p>\n
Throughout my time as the MSA religious representative, I not only grew more connected with other Muslim students, but also other religious representatives and their peers. This sense of connectedness made me inspired to not only contribute to MSA, but also Religious Council, in a more direct manner. The Religious Council especially gave me the confidence to take on more leadership roles. At the end of my first year, I decided to run for MSA co-president as well as the treasurer for the Religious Council. In both areas, I wanted to improve student participation as well as help facilitate more student-led events to be held.<\/p>\n
In my second year, I was able to accomplish these goals. I continued organizing events and get-togethers in MSA, along with helping newer first-year Muslim students navigate Furman University. Additionally, I helped with managing the finances for all religious organizations on campus. This allowed more events to be held by each organization, as well as accelerate more collaborations between organizations. I am happy that I was able to contribute to the Religious Council positively through being a treasurer and supporting the financial management for sixteen student organizations.<\/p>\n
In my third year, I hope to contribute to the Religious Council as MSA\u2019s co-president. I believe I can continue pursuing my goal of creating a space for not just for Muslims, but for every student on campus to practice their faith without feeling isolated. Overall, being a part of OSL through the Religious Council as a religious representative and treasurer not only helped me gain more experience as a leader but also helped me learn more about Furman\u2019s community. Without OSL, I would not be able to call Furman University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello, my name is Aidah! I am the current co-president of Furman University\u2019s Muslim Student Association (MSA) on campus, as well as a former treasurer for the Religious Council. I grew up in South Carolina, and I spent most of my life living in Greenville. But since elementary school, I always noticed that I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":393,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-osl-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/spiritual-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}