By Gloria Vittadello
Staff Writer
Sarah Kasziba-O’Rahilly, known on campus as “Sarah KO,” can often be found walking backwards dressed in blue and white stripes, leading new-student orientation or encouraging students to vote.
Despite her involvement on campus, she said she did not expect to receive the College’s Blue and Gold Hall of Fame Award this year.
A senior political science major with minors in law, politics, philosophy and criminology, Kasziba-O’Rahilly, was one of 12 students honored with this award earlier this month. Established in 2015, this annual award recognizes students who have made lasting contributions to the College throughout their time here.
Getting the award comes in three parts. First, students are nominated by any staff member on campus. Then, they submit an application, which decreases the pool of nominees for an in-person interview.
Kasziba-O’Rahilly’s involvement
“I didn’t really think about the award all that much up until this year, considering I was nominated,” she said.
Kasziba-O’Rahilly is involved in multiple organizations on campus, most notably Student Transitions, Student Government, Alpha Xi Delta sorority and TCNJ Votes.
Before getting to college, she explained she wasn’t very involved in high school. While she worked a customer service job and she played lacrosse, she wasn’t a part of clubs at school. She said this trend seemed like it was going to continue, but during the second half of her freshman year, she took the steps to join a sorority and applied to be an orientation leader.
“Joining OL changed everything for me, which seems dramatic, but I didn’t know how to do anything,” she said with a smile. She questioned how she even got the job, considering she didn’t have much to write when the interviewers asked her, “tell us about your involvement.”
“I remember when she first came into her interview. She was so cool,” Cherese Telemaque, the associate director, co-curricular and leadership development chair at the College said. “I was like, ‘I like her vibe.’”
Kasziba-O’Rahilly explained that during her time as an orientation leader, her and Telemaque grew to have a blossoming professional relationship.
Becoming an orientation leader, and eventually transition leader coordinator, where she managed incoming and active OL’s, helped Kasziba-O’Rahilly realize how much she loved helping people. Becoming an OL shaped what she did with the rest of her involvement, she said.
“I’ve worked in customer service my whole life and I’m always inserting myself trying to be helpful,” Kasziba-O’Rahilly said. “That’s how I was raised. Student transitions gave me the opportunity to do that with a bunch of other people. It’s how I learned how much I loved helping people.”
“What made Sarah such a great transition leader is that she’s authentic to herself,” Telemaque said. “As a TLC, she showed that she is very detail-oriented and takes initiative. I can push her outside of her comfort zone, and she doesn’t clam up at all.”
She attributed her award to her family’s support and the helpful advice of the people she worked alongside in student transitions. “Everything I’m involved in now stemmed from meeting someone in student transitions who encouraged me to try it because they believed I would benefit,” she said.
Kasziba-O’Rahilly is now an OL and an ambassador. While she didn’t get the ambassador job her freshman year, with a friendly push from the friends she made as an OL, she built up the confidence to try again. This time she had less of a resume-building mindset, and more because she truly wanted to get more involved.
“Student transitions kind of taught me that your resume is not as important. It’s about what you’re learning and how you’re helping,” she said.
While she loves to help people, she didn’t realize the impact she was having on them. This award has helped her realize that what she’s doing has had a positive effect on the people she meets, she said.
“Everyone at TCNJ has taught me something. Every single person,” she said. “Blue and Gold showed me that my connections with those people didn’t just impact me, but had an impact on somebody else.”
The Biggest Lessons She’s Learned
“Once I stopped caring about people’s perceptions of me, I was able to do a lot more,” she said.
It’s easy to get consumed with what people think of you, but once you move away from that, you’re able to find what you really love to do, she explained.
“Finding something that you actually care about is so important,” she said in reflection. “It’s the love of the game, you don’t want to join something you’re not passionate about. It just drains you. Do things you’re going to gain something from and what you can do for other people.”
She said she learned how important it is to make mistakes, and learn from them.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes. A lot. Hundreds and thousands of them. That’s just how you grow and learn,” she said. “I was even making mistakes as a TLC. I was learning how to lead a group, within that I made my own mistakes, but now I know what to do. In your professional life you're always growing, learning and trying to figure things out. Those mistakes are the best thing that can happen to you. You learn how to not make the same mistake again.”
Although she expresses she wishes she could fix these mistakes, it was the only way to truly grow into the leader she has become.
To current students who are scared of the future, Kasziba-O'Rahilly said, “Go Lions, don’t give up on yourself, It gets easier and it all works out,” she said. “That’s something I needed to hear when I was a freshman.”
Future Plans
“I'm staying at TCNJ for my masters in public policy and I’m working in the office of curricular leadership development as a grad assistant. I’m still going to be applying for internships in the fall and spring just to work.”
She also mentioned she might be working on campus with the sustainability institute, which is a non-profit organization that functions on campus.
