New A-Team members share their story and goals for the team

Agathe Pompon

A-Team member

Hello! My name is Agathe, and I am a commercial photography major. It is my last semester at Southeast Missouri State University, and I have really liked the experience so far.

I believe I have had a rendezvous with the A-Team every week in the Arrow for a while now because it is my favorite section of the newspaper. So when I got a call telling me "Bravo, you are one of the new members of the A-Team!" I was very happy. Not to sound too cliché, but I hope I can make people enjoy reading the A-Team as much as others have made me enjoy reading it. It is always reassuring to see other people have the same fears you have about the future and life in general. It is also enriching to see different point of views on various subjects.

As you can see from the picture, I am a brunette. What you can't see is that I am pretty tall. It does not say much about my personality, but these facts describe me. Besides some strong values like loyalty, friendship and open-mindedness, the opinion I have on things changes depending on the information that comes to me. Therefore, I might contradict myself from time to time, but oh well. C'est la vie!

When I was in high school I wanted to become a professional magician because I thought it was chic, but then it seemed that getting a degree in graphic design would be a better choice to make a living. I don't recommend giving up on your dreams, but sometimes one needs to remember eating is an essential part of life. Now I am studying photography and hopefully that will make me rich one day. A little optimistic? Touché!

I've been studying at SEMO for two and a half years. I have made many faux pas that actually led me to the place I wanted to be. Hopefully, my background and experiences will make me able to share opinions that don't feel like dejá vu so that it stays pleasurable to read the A-Team. I applied to the position because I wanted to make a contribution to Southeast and give back to the community from what I learned here. Oh and I didn't mention it yet, but I am from France!

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Daniel Eckert

A-Team member

I'm Daniel Eckert. I'm the president of the Gay/Straight Alliance at SEMO, a junior in the mass media department and a new member of this here A-Team!

I'm really happy to be a part of this team because I absolutely love to give out advice and help people out the best I can. I've lived a pretty full life, and I've been faced with a fair amount of adversity because I'm female to male transgender, which more or less means I'm a guy in a female body.

I hope that I can help a lot of people, and maybe even bust some LGBT myths, in my time here with the A-Team. In the end, I really just want to help people and educate people and I feel like this is a great place to do that. I'm a very open person, so I hope to get a lot of questions that I can answer and people are willing to listen to.

I'm the type of person to talk about topical things in the news, and I'm always interested in educating myself on controversial topics. I love to have civil debates and hear opinions separate from mine.

I'm open to all mindsets and hearing how people think and what they believe. I'm a very big nerd as well, and I'm always making theories for shows I watch or games I play. I'm a big PC Gamer, and I'm usually playing some kind of computer game after I finish my homework (or before).

My recent obsession has been BBC's Top Gear since Netflix has almost all of the episodes. I've never been interested in cars, but Top Gear has changed my mind and the show gives a hint to the type of humor I have. In fact, I enjoy a lot of BBC and English shows, and I follow "Doctor Who" and "The IT Crowd." I tend not to think about the future a lot, but I hope to be a reporter for National Public Radio for my career because it would allow me to travel and learn about many different things.

If there are questions out there, I'm easy to contact through the A-Team blog at southeastArrow.com or through my email at eckertprof@gmail.com. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions, I am always up for talking and getting to know new people.

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Amber Cason

A-Team member

Hi! My name is Amber Cason, and I am one of the new members of the Arrow's A-Team! I am a 21-year-old junior from Springfield, Ill., a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, a resident assistant for university housing, a Student Government Association senator for the College of Liberal Arts and a multimedia journalism major in the Department of Mass Media.

But on to the more important things! I have an obsession with coffee, fat dogs and clothes, and any combination of these three things pretty much makes me completely overjoyed. I spend absolutely way too much of my free time on Pinterest, but hey, how else am I going to plan my future home, entire wardrobe, find inspirational quotes for my life and recipes for meals I will never cook?

I love old movies and great books and have been known to skip out on a night out, or three, to enjoy them. I am a self-proclaimed amateur comedian, a fan of food, politics, fashion magazines, sleeping, great friends and just about everything else that life has to offer.

My dream in life is to travel the world and meet as many amazing people and see as many amazing things as I possibly can. My dream career is a mixture of the careers of Carrie Bradshaw, Olivia Pope, Anna Wintour and Chirlane McCray. (If you have no idea who any of these women are, do yourself a favor and look them up.) And my dream place to live in is Chicago. I honestly think it is one of the best places in America. (Sorry, St. Louis.)

I joined the A-Team because I really wanted the opportunity to address concerns students may have on campus, give advice in the best way I can and maybe even entertain a person or two with my writing. I love to write and voice my opinion about any and everything, so being on the A-Team, I feel, gives me the platform to do just that.

What I hope to accomplish from my time as an A-Team member is to really reach readers and write about things they want to read in ways that they appreciate, whether that be through humor, sincerity, past experiences or whatever else I can use.

Writing and connecting with people are some of my favorite things to do, so I am so excited that I get the opportunity to do that by being a member of the A-Team.