Kiyana Tabrizi’s alarm goes off every day at 5:40 a.m.
“I literally roll out of bed,” Tabrizi said.
From there, she pulls a comb through her hair, throws on some gym clothes and grabs a handful of snack food before heading off for an hour at the gym.
The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) president and political science senior has to get up this early if she wants to get some cardio and reps in, because by the time 8 a.m. rolls around, Tabrizi is hurrying from committee meeting to class with little time to breathe in between.
Tabrizi’s busy schedule is all part of her job as ASI president, which requires her to balance her schoolwork with the needs and concerns of students, faculty and staff.
By 7 a.m., Tabrizi is finished with her workout and stops by her house once more to change and grab her school supplies. Then, she’s back on campus at 8 a.m. for a morning full of meetings.
These usually include meetings with the ASI executive director or any one of the many committees Tabrizi is involved with.
By noon, she heads off to class for several hours, and when she gets out at 2 p.m., she’s back into meetings. All of the running around leaves Tabrizi little time to even eat.
“Lunch is usually if I get out of class early, I try to sneak in something,” Tabrizi said.
With such full days, it’s hard to avoid scheduling conflicts, Tabrizi said, like the once-a-month Thursday meetings of the Student Community Liaison Committee (SCLC), which happen to cut into an hour of Tabrizi’s afternoon class.
“I rush and leave (SCLC) early, and let my teacher know that I will be late,” Tabrizi said.
Overlaps like this do happen occasionally, but most of them are avoided thanks to Tracy Watson, administrative assistant for the student government. Watson helps to manage Tabrizi’s schedule, ensuring that she can see to everything — and stay sane, she said.
“Her calendar is usually just solid from eight-ish,” Watson said. “She’s working with so many people on campus, from the president’s office to the alumni office to ASI. She talks with a lot of different people.”
Watson serves as a kind of personal assistant by helping Tabrizi meet her obligations, as well as take care of unexpected meetings that pop up. She also reminds Tabrizi every day before she leaves of what’s coming up the next day.
“It’s like juggling, it really is,” Watson said. “And trying to include a little bit of studying in there.”
That studying comes after Tabrizi gets out of her final class of the day at 6 p.m. Tabrizi usually blocks off that time in her schedule to spend in her office, focusing on meeting agendas, budgets or occasionally what she considers “doing something weird called homework and studying.”
Tabrizi’s office in the Julian A. McPhee University Union helps her balance her roles of student and ASI president, Tabrizi said.
“It gives me a little sanctuary where I can focus and work,” Tabrizi said.
When all her ASI work is done, Tabrizi packs up her things and heads back home, where she gets the first chance to relax since her alarm went off more than 12 hours ago.
Tabrizi’s evenings at home are also one of the few chances she gets to socialize with her friends during her busy weeks.
“I live with my best friends, so when I go home, even if it’s only sitting on the couch for a hour before bed, that’s fun time,” Tabrizi said.
Tabrizi’s time at home is her down time, said her roommate and agricultural business senior Bridget Kline.
“When she’s home, she’s pretty relaxed,” Kline said. “She does all her work in the office.”
Roommate and theatre senior Sarah Schiff said Tabrizi’s schedule is packed. She said she and the other roommates didn’t expect this much work would lay ahead for Tabrizi when she was running for president last spring.
“We used to see her a lot more,” Schiff said. “This year, we only see her like an hour a day, maybe.”
Schiff makes up for the lost time by stopping by Tabrizi’s office to say “hello,” or scheduling time to hang out well in advance, she said.
“If you want to hang out with her, you have to plan ahead so that she can put it in her calendar,” Schiff said.
Nonetheless, Schiff said she enjoys having a friend who is so involved with ASI,so she can understand all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into running a student government. Schiff said she loves hearing about who Tabrizi met with that morning, even if the details of administrative meetings aren’t revealed.
And for Tabrizi, she said she wouldn’t trade the job for anything, because of all the people she has met and continues to meet.
“Really, the best part of my day is interacting with different students, different staff members and different faculty,” Tabrizi said.