Irma Valverde ’18 (BUS, CLAS)
Majors: Political Science, Management
Walking around the Storrs campus on a tour, Irma Valverde ’18 (BUS, CLAS) was struck by how many people were wearing UConn gear. “I didn’t get that school spirit vibe anywhere else I visited,” says Valverde, who is now a senior and the president of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG). UConn, despite its size, also felt like home, she says.
If you come in undecided, ACES (Academic Center for Exploratory Students) will help you find your passion. I loved having someone who pushed me to find out what I wanted to do and was always supportive of me.
“The tour guide told us you can’t make a small school feel bigger, but you can make a big school feel smaller,” she says. “I didn’t know if I really believed it, but now I think about that every day when I see someone I know walking around, or when someone goes out of their way to help me.”
The way to carve your niche here is to get involved, Valverde says. Right away, she became a USG senator and a Husky Ambassador, and later, an Orientation Leader and sister of the Alpha Phi sorority.
How does she unwind from all that? “I don’t think there’s anything better than going to a packed Gampel Pavilion, seeing everyone so excited, staying ’til the last second because we just love our teams.”
