Laura Rogers knows Valdosta State University better than anybody.

The 24-year-old graduate student has worked as a student assistant in the Student Life office at Valdosta State University since first attending as a freshman in 2004. She has been involved in activities on campus, such as serving as the station manager at WVVS Blaze FM, vice president of the Student Action Council, vice president of the Student Government Association, and building manager for the old Student Union.

To be honest, to say she knows VSU is really an understatement.

Rogers, who was born in Jacksonville and went to high school in Marietta, applied to VSU along with her best friend from high school.

“My best friend in high school, we didn’t know where we wanted to go to college, and she said she’d heard of this place called VSU,” she said. “I applied. It was the only place I applied to. I was accepted and I showed up and it was very nice. She only stayed a semester, but I’ve been here ever since.”

It was during her first class at VSU that she met John Wright, the now associate director of Student Life, who was teaching her political science class.

“I remembered him from orientation talking about Student Life and stuff,” Rogers said. “So the first day of class, I waited and I talked to him after class and was like, ‘I only know one person here and I’d like to meet people so can you help me find an organization or something so that I can meet people.’ I never got involved in anything in high school. I never really did sports or clubs or anything like that.”

Wright suggested she come to the Student Life office and it lead Rogers to her job as a student assistant in one of the busiest offices on campus.

Because of working in Student Life, Rogers became accustomed to many of the organizations that were housed within Student Life at the time, such as the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Campus Activities Board (CAB).

“I joined SGA and that led me into CAB and the radio station, the Student Action Council and everything else,” she said. “I meet so many faculty and staff members; they ask me to do things such as judging the Lip Sync contest last week for homecoming. Because our office deals with everything fun on campus, I’m able to get involved.”

Last December, Rogers graduated from VSU with a bachelor of fine arts degree in speech communication with an emphasis on intercultural organizational communication. The next semester she began working on her master of public administration degree and hasn’t been able to be as active on campus as she once did.

“I miss it sometimes,” she said. “I learned a lot from all the organizations I was in because I was in executive positions in a lot of them. I got to practice the managerial skills that I learned as an undergraduate and I learned a lot of the skills I’ve learned in grad school. I feel like that’s what I can take away from my college experience is the experience with real-life organizations; that way I won’t go into a job and be blindsided.”

One of the best experiences she had while being a part of the many organizations was working on the new Student Union Planning Committee. She was vice president of SGA at the time and she along with the SGA president and a few others were able to voice their concerns about the project.

“They wanted as much student representation as they did faculty and staff because (the union) was paid for by the students’ money (fees),” she said. “It was kind of a collaboration with three different companies and we would give them an idea. They would come back with examples and we could say, ‘Yeah, that sucks’ or ‘Yeah, keep that.’ Then as far as the carpet, the tiles, the paint and everything else, we went through hours and hours of samples to pick them out.”

Now, as a graduate student at the school, she’s proud of the new Student Union when she walks through it.

“When it first opened, I was talking about it all the time,” she said. “I got to give the local media a tour of it, so I was on the news and my family was really excited. For two years I was on that committee. It was all about looking at blueprints and plans, but to actually walk through it, it’s kind of surreal.”

One of the ideas for the new Student Union that Rogers pushed was lounging space for students who had nowhere to go between classes.

“There wasn’t anywhere to sit on campus if you had an hour or so between classes,” she said. “You didn’t have time to go to the parking garage, go home, come back, find another parking space and make it to the next class. I would have to sit on the front lawn or a bench. There was nowhere to hang out or meet other people. (The Student Union) is supposed to be the living room of the campus.”

Now Rogers has her wish, with many places around the new Student Union to sit, relax, meet people, watch television or browse the Internet.

While she doesn’t have a lot of free time since becoming a graduate student for organizations as she once did, what little free time she does have is mostly devoted to homework.

“I kind of did my degree fast,” she explained. “I did all of my classes except for one and my internship that I will have in the spring since last January.”

When she does have a bit of free time, she spends it visiting her best friend, Danielle O’Brien, who lives in Ft. Knox, Ky. O’Brien, who’s husband is stationed in Valdosta, is expecting her first child in February and Rogers is beyond excited.

“Oh my God, this is definitely the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” Rogers said, “because she’s like my sister. She even told the hospital that she’s delivering the baby at that I’m her biological sister. We tell everybody that because we do everything together. I’m the second person on the list at the hospital for when she goes into labor. If her husband can’t make it, then they’ll call me.”

Rogers is so excited about the baby that she Googles websites about what her friend should and shouldn’t eat, sending her links in emails all the time. She has also started making a baby book for the baby, who O’Brien plans on naming Conner.

“I’ve been writing it,” she said. “It’s a scrapbook of her pregnancy and how (she and her husband) met. It’s written like a storybook so that she can read it to the baby. It’s called ‘The Story of Baby O’Brien.’”

Together, both Rogers and O’Brien love to travel, having one time driven from Santa Barbara, Calif., all the way to Savannah to help O’Brien move while her husband was stationed in Iraq.

“Danielle and I are very spontaneous and we do a lot of trips,” Rogers said. “Like, we can leave right now and go to Savannah for the night or Jacksonville for the day. Maybe we’ll run down to Naples, who knows.”

Traveling is something that Rogers herself experienced in the summer of 2008 when she did study abroad in Italy.

“I think all students should study abroad because it was the best thing I’ve ever did,” she said. “I learned more from studying abroad than I did in sitting in classes. I loved it. I tell people that all the time when they come into the office.”

But with her international traveling behind her, she has one more semester at VSU before being pushed into the real world.

“If I can get a job, I’d like to go back to Florida if I can afford to move. If I can’t, I’m going to stay here and get my doctorate degree,” she said. “I love it here.”