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Home > Archive > Oct 11, 2007

A Real Go-Getter
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
Snow Canyon High School senior Carlie Mzik is just about as involved in school as she can be.
A high honor student, Mzik, 17, is the assemblies director for the SCHS executive council, an alto in the school madrigal choir, president of the Spirit Club, assistant editor of the school newspaper, a member of the drama club council and part of the National Honor Society. And in her spare time, Mzik studies and gets her homework done.
“School is my hobby. I stay here every night, printing out locker notes and painting things and building sets and having assembly practices. School is my life,” Mzik said. “Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a little too much, because I do a lot, but I enjoy it. I couldn't give anything up, because I love it too much!”
Striving to get as much as she can out of her high school experience, Mzik doesn't believe in wasting time – she is cramming in as many good times and memories as she can during her final year at Snow Canyon.
“There's so much stuff to do, and I'm doing it all and I love it!” she said.
Experiencing her first go-round as a member of student council, Mzik cut back on her advanced placement endeavors this year so she could focus on her exec council duties. In the face of her busy schedule, she's now glad she made that decision, she said, and, besides, she's taken just about every AP class she could, anyway.
“Really, there's not a whole lot more I could take besides AP calculus, which would be frightening!” she said. “I'm glad I took them when I did – I'm glad I'm not taking them now.”
Exec council can be an all-consuming endeavor, Mzik said. But though the hours are long and the work can be challenging, this student is enjoying every minute of it.
“It is so much crazier, and it's a lot harder than I ever expected, but it's also so much more fun than I ever expected,” she said.
Along with the other council members, Mzik spends hours organizing and decorating for dances, games and other school events and activities. If activity signs need to be put up around the school, she and the other council members are there to do it; if the stadium needs to be cleaned up after a game, the council is on top of that.
As the assemblies director for the exec council, Mzik puts in a great deal of time, creativity and effort to make sure each assembly is organized, well executed and fun, so students will have an enjoyable time and everything will run smoothly.
“I think she's kind of a behind-the-scenes type person,” Jamie Kreyling, faculty advisor to the exec council, said. “We'll have an assembly that goes really great, and everybody thanks everybody that did it, and they don't realize that a majority of the work was done beforehand with her just organizing it and outlining it.”
But getting recognition for her efforts isn't number one on Mzik's priority list, and she knows that as a member of exec council, she is part of a team. She is a go-getter, though, and making a visible difference at her school is important to her and a big part of what motivates her as a student council member.
“In a position of authority, it is so much easier to get your ideas out there and see how they impact people and to see how your ideas are helping other people,” Mzik said. “It's really great to have the power to really make our school as good as I know it can be and as good as I want it to be.”
And with leadership and responsibility always comes growth and learning, and Mzik said she has had to learn some give-and-take as a member of the council and also some finesse in working with her fellow council members.
“That's probably been the biggest challenge for me so far, because I do have ideas that I want to get out. I'm very opinionated, and so I had to learn very quickly that not all of my ideas are good and not everyone communicates in the same way that I do,” she said. “For me, telling someone straight out what I think might hurt their feelings, so I've learned to be a little diplomatic sometimes, and also not to take it hard when other people are very straightforward with me. Communication is a really, really huge factor in everything that we do.”
These newly acquired skills should come in handy for Mzik as she heads out into the world post-graduation. She plans to attend the University of Utah, and she is currently debating between pursuing a theater major or going into education as a counselor or a teacher. But as long as she's able to get her ideas out into world and make an impact on others, Mzik will be satisfied.
Advisor Kreyling said whatever field of endeavor Mzik ultimately pursues, she has the skills necessary to be successful.
“She's very thorough, organized, dependable. She's very able to take charge and get things organized and make them happen,” he said.
Mzik is the daughter John and Kellie Mzik of Santa Clara.

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