Interesting People

ELEXIS WHITE, junior marketing and psychology double major

EW I plan in the future to start my own store, a clothing, furniture and shoe store, as well as a non-profit organization … called “Expressions: Where Creative Minds Meet,” which has already been established at my previous school, and I definitely plan to bring a chapter here to VCU. This is my first semester here, so –  I really enjoy it. I like the different cultural experience I’ve had so far.

CT Your former school wouldn’t happen to be JMU, would it?

EW No–? It’s actually called Thomas Nelson Community College.

CT It’s just, your color scheme.

EW I do like these colors together.

CT Has “Expressions” spawned from a particular passion for clothes? Or furniture? Shoes?

EW I’ve actually coordinated two fashion shows and some art shows. What “Expressions” incorporated was a lot of creativity. “Where creative minds meet” is the concept of bringing people together who do a lot of different things, such as journalism or poetry — whatever it is that your own niche is, we bring it together and have, like, an event that showcases those different — “Expressions.”

CT You seem like the fashionable type yourself.

EW Yeah, I like to try different things. I’m not a brand name person. I like to take things and create it as my own. In the future reference, I plan to start a clothing line called “ShanaLex: rags to riches.” That’s gonna be part of the store.

CT What can you say about the fashion sense of these fine Compass denizens?

EW I see a lot of – “casual” –  going on. This must be one of those days.

CT How have you found VCU different from Thomas Nelson?

EW Well first of all of course it’s broader, bigger because it’s in the city. … I like the fact that there’s a lot to do. Because at Thomas Nelson, not that there wasn’t a lot to do – the reason I started “Expressions” was because there wasn’t (sic) a lot of “Expressive” things to do. Like, there’s all kinds of cultural things to do that’s going on on campus, that I would love to get involved in. I’m working for fall semester to sign up for Senator and then work to set up the club.

CT What do you think of the students?

EW Well I’ve had random moments here. Where people will just start talking, and I’ll be like very nosy, and they’ll talk about something going on on campus, and then next thing you know they’ll incorporate and they’re like, “Oh, would you like to come to such and such event?” Just like this happened, like, two seconds ago.

CT So the last few days before spring break, huh?

EW It is pretty busy. Pretty much all about studying. … I’ve been seeing all types of stuff to get involved in. I haven’t had that chance to really explore it myself yet, but when I get that chance, I can’t wait, I’m gonna blossom like a flower. This semeseter alone I’ve gone to different meetings, Circle K, Black Engineers, Relay for Life … I’ve just tried to explore and figure out where I want to put myself at. A lot of networking.

CT If you could say something in particular to everyone reading this article — ?

EW Well actually I haven’t completely came up with it yet, but — it’d definitely have to do with being your own self, individual self, ’cause that’s a lot of the things that I love to exploit. It’s important to have.

Lady GaGa, I was just researching her recently, going through her stuff, but … I admire her for being herself; she is amazing. Especially after I got to listen to her interviews and hear her talking about herself and her experiences as a child; it’s great, the fact that you can exploit yourself in any old kind of way, your individuality, exploring who you are and being happy with yourself. There’s so many cases of people being depressed and unhappy because of what society says they should be, and I’m willing to just make sure that we fix that and exploit who we are. Also, “vote right for Elexis White.”