Student Spotlight: Enriching campus life through CAB

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Dimple Joseph and her fellow CAB members pose with T.J. Miller, the headlining comedian of Freezefest 2017.

Dimple Joseph is a fifth-year student from Houston. Joseph is part of a dual-degree program, meaning that she will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering as well as a master’s degree in engineering management. Pursuing both degrees in tandem may seem like a tall task, but Joseph is a driven student who strives to excel in both her coursework and her involvement with campus life activities.

Joseph is currently serving as the director of the College Activities Board. Through this position, Dimple works with her staff members to plan events for students that help them socialize, make new friends and feel more connected to RIT, Rochester and the global community. Collaboration, socialization and having fun with her fellow staff members have inspired Joseph to stay involved on campus in as many ways as possible.

As a part of her position on the College Activities Board, Joseph helps organize FreezeFest, a week of winter-themed activities organized by the Center for Campus Life that celebrates Rochester’s cold and snowy months. All clubs and organizations on campus are encouraged to participate in this festival, which began in 2010.

Question: What brought you to RIT?
Answer: I’ve wanted to go to RIT since I was in seventh grade when I heard about it at a STEM camp I went to at University of Houston. The camp exposed students to various colleges and career paths that you can take in STEM fields. Then, when I went to high school, I went to an engineering academy that exposed me to various disciplines of engineering. There, I figured out and crossed off what I didn’t want to do and found that industrial engineering was the best fit for me. When I started looking further into RIT, I saw it also had a great campus life environment. The first thing I noticed was the large number of clubs and activities they had. I also liked that the industrial engineering department had faculty with so many various backgrounds that would expose me to all the great things that I wanted out of a college experience. On my first day when I went to my first class, which was Fundamentals of Industrial Engineering with Dr. Mozrall, I was confident that I came to the right place for the right degree. It gave me the “ah-ha” moment of this is why I’m here and this is what I want to do.

Q: Why did you choose to get involved with the College Activities Board (CAB)?
A: My first semester here I saw this group of students that were putting on these great events, and then I saw a flier that said they were hiring. I had never had a job before, and I knew that getting a job and having this experience was something I wanted to do in college, so I applied for CAB. We had a group process day in the Fireside Lounge of the SAU and it was packed with students who were applying for different positions. After going through CAB’s hiring process, I was fortunate enough to land a position as an event manager. It was surprising to me that even though I was a first-year student in my second semester, they saw something in me and they wanted to keep me on. I’ve loved it ever since.

Q: What is your favorite part of being involved with CAB?
A: Hands down, it’s the people. Days are never the same in our office, everyone is so unique. I would have never met these people if it wasn’t for CAB. We have varied interests, different majors and different hometowns, but we mesh together and that is what makes us successful. Through our diversity, we are able to better represent our students when we make decisions. So my favorite part is definitely the staff. The work that we do together has a huge influence on campus life. We bring students out of their rooms and out of their classrooms to do something together and create relationships that will last forever.

Q: What do you do to help organize FreezeFest?
A: My role has definitely changed as I progressed in CAB. When I was an event manager I would run the events themselves, but it was planned by someone else. When I worked in major events, I would go through the process of picking the comedians we usually have at FreezeFest, which is one of the biggest events of the weekend. This year, as director, I’ve been working as a facilitator to make sure that the major events committee we have runs smoothly, that things are getting planned, and that people are communicating effectively. I have also been helping with the major events process. I get to look over FreezeFest as a whole rather than specific parts of it like I did in the past. I make sure everyone has the resources that they need to be successful.

Q: Are you looking forward to any specific events that will be hosted during the festival?
A: There’s a whole lot of traditional events that are going to happen again this year, like Build-a-Buddy, but there are also a lot of new things, like the escape room. We are going to have new buddies for Build-a-Buddy, food trucks and, of course, we will be having an ice sculpture made, which is always pretty cool. At the ice sculpture, we are going to have a hot cocoa stand with a variety of hot cocoa flavors this year, and I didn’t even know there was more than one flavor, so I’m looking forward to trying that. We’ll also have events hosted by various campus partners like grocery bingo, a 5k run/walk and the winter warrior. We’ll end the festivities with our big football party on Sunday.

Q: After FreezeFest, what other CAB events can people look forward to?
A: There is a huge planning committee already working on planning events for SpringFest, which is coming up toward the end of April, and we have a lot of things planned for grad week for the graduating class of 2018. We will also have a Rec Travel snow tubing trip off campus, a CAB Cinema screening of Hidden Figures and one of our signature events, Last Comic Standing, is coming up soon as well.

Q: Do you think you’ll try to stay involved with the RIT community after you graduate this year?
A: Most definitely. Coming to RIT is something that I have been wanting since I was in seventh grade, I can’t believe almost five years have passed since I started. Being a student here has been one of the greatest things that has impacted me as a person, so giving back to RIT, my department, CAB and the various organizations I’ve been a part of is important to me, and I want to continue to be a part of it for as long as I can. I think it’s important to give back to this community that has given me so much. I wouldn’t know who I was as a person or what kind of things I really liked if it wasn’t for my experiences at RIT.

Dimple Joseph poses with the staff of the College Activities Board.

Dimple Joseph