She can be found in her office checking emails and making phone calls. On Thursday nights she can be found with a gavel in her hand conducting SGA meetings and training freshman council. And don’t forget her classes, sorority obligations, philanthropic events and anything else that falls under one of her many positions at MTSU.
When Haley Cobb, senior agriculture business major with a minor in communications, came to MTSU, she didn’t see herself becoming strongly involved in student government. Her sister had been executive vice president when she graduated and had worked to organize Freshman Council during her term.
“At the time, freshman were voted in after they started their semester, so they were just thrown in with the upperclassman before they had even gone to senate retreat,” Cobb said. “After my sister started Freshman Council, she convinced me to join even though I didn’t think it was for me… I loved every second of it… It was one of those things where family sometimes knows more than you.”
Cobb served as president of Freshman Council and an SGA senator her sophomore year. She planned to wait another year before running for an executive position, but due to the resignation of then Executive Vice President Everett Batten on the first day of fall term 2013, Cobb was thrust into the position.
“It was different last year, because I did not have the summer to prepare like I did this year,” she said. “I have been working on this position since May… But I learned a lot last year that I can implement this year.”
Cobb described her schedule as a juggling act between keeping up with senate hours, meetings with campus officials, clubs, sorority events, classes and homework. She has a calendar in her office, at home and on her phone.
“A lot of it is trying to keep some kind of routine,” she said. “Just sleep on the weekends… if you can.”
Her dog is what keeps her sane, Cobb said, laughing. Her “fun time” is spent at home with Harvey, the whippet mix she adopted when he was fully grown and full of energy.
Cobb’s greatest joy is working with Freshman Council because they are so excited coming in. She explained that they learn a lot by running their own meetings, filling out forms, presenting legislation and debating and voting on it. She still talks to most of the members of last year’s Freshman Council and they are still friends with one another today.
“They fully embrace and enjoy the responsibility,” Cobb said. “It’s what really made me want to be a teacher.”
Having grown up on a farm in Lincoln County, Cobb chased her passion of agriculture when she chose her major and a love of communication when she chose her minor. She considered double majoring in Public Communication, but she would not have graduated on time. She realized that college is more about experience than the major and jumped right into pursuing her career.
Now she just wants to inform the public about agriculture because she believes people need to know more.
Cobb served an internship at Gibbs and Soell Business Communications in Raleigh, NC this past summer. It turned out to be a hands-on experience, Cobb said, that generated interest in law because of all the regulations she discovered she had to deal with on the job.
At the moment she is looking into law school after graduation, but her real niche is in agriculture. She is especially thinking about ag communication.
“I want to have a goal of where I want to be and where I want to get to.”
