Panhellenic President Sarah Jacobsen discusses life at UI
Everyone has embarrassing stories from their college years. For University of Idaho Panhellenic Council President Sarah Jacobsen, it was a brisk fall morning during her freshman year that she got into a bit of a “pickle.”
Jackson Flynn | Argonaut
Senior Sarah Jacobsen is the current Panhellenic president and will be ending her term in December. Applications for all Panhellenic positions will be available November 7th and elections will be in December.
“My friends and I were out at The Breakfast Club, and we’re all still freshman trying to get to know each other and one of my friends mentioned that cucumbers were pickles, and I said ‘No they’re not,'” Jacobsen said. “So then everyone looks at me weird and someone asked if I really didn’t know that pickles were cucumbers and I just immediately said ‘Oh, yeah, I knew that,’ when I really didn’t.”
Jacobsen said while she’s had her fair share of frenzied times over the past three years, she wouldn’t trade them for anything. As current Panhellenic president and former vice president of public relations, she said her experience in Greek leadership has positively impacted her growth and outlook on life.
“I never thought coming into school that this was something that I was ever going to do and then I guess I just took the road less traveled and got out of my comfort zone,” Jacobsen said. “I’m also just really grateful for how it’s made me grow personally. It has made me a stronger person and has made me develop a tougher skin.”
The Hayden Lake native and Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority member said she was born to be a Vandal. Jacobsen’s parents and five siblings attended UI and she said she always looked forward to becoming a Vandal, too.
“I think I knew early on that I was going to go to the University of Idaho since it is such a big family tradition,” she said. “The campus is so charming and it feels like home.”
Although she initially declared theatre arts as her major, her future career aspirations changed when she took her first broadcasting class. Jacobsen said once she started working with video she would often find herself in the editing bay and spend hours working on class projects.
“I loved that there was something that I was truly interested in and I never really had that connecting moment yet but that was it for me,” Jacobsen said.
The broadcast digital media major also has a minor in marketing, for which she said the two go hand-in-hand.
For her Greek involvement, Jacobsen attended her first Panhellenic Council meeting her freshman year and said she was hooked from the beginning because of the sense of community among members. She said she enjoyed watching women from different chapters getting along and working together for the greater good.
“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that’s something I really want to be a part of one day,'” she said.
Later, Jacobsen was elected as vice president of public relations, and with a little encouragement from her friend and previous Panhellenic president, Brooklynn Watts, Jacobsen decided she would run for the presidency — and won.
However, Jacobsen’s term as Panhellenic president is coming to end in a couple months. Applications for next year’s council positions will be available Nov. 7, and the elections for next year’s Panhellenic council are in December.
“I know they say that everything must come to an end but I’m excited for this next year and seeing how this new board will take Panhellenic even a step farther than we have,” she said.
Jacobsen said she spends a majority of her free time reporting for “Inside the Vandals,” a video series looking into UI athletics. When she’s not in class, in a meeting or filming along the Kibbie Dome sidelines, Jacobsen said she enjoys spending time with her friends and executive council, listening to acoustic music or hip hop, reading a good book or watching movies and spending time with her two Persian cats.
Like most seniors in college, Jacobsen dreams of seeing the world and said next summer she and her sister plan to backpack through Europe. She also said she’d like to visit Thailand, Bali and India.
Jacobsen said the future of UI is up to incoming freshmen, and that freshmen need to harness the college experience by doing more than just going to class.
“Coming in as a freshman is really terrifying but you can do so much when you believe in yourself,” she said. “Others will be there to help lift you up — you just have to believe.”
Emily Mosset can be reached at [email protected]