Photo courtesy of Luke Farrell

If you’ve walked around campus, odds are you’ve crossed paths with Luke Farrell. He’s often found giving a tour of campus or engaging in conversation with peers or faculty members. A senior majoring in psychology and mass media studies, Farrell is known for his outgoing demeanor and uplifting attitude.

As a native of Huntington, Long Island, Farrell grew up knowing about Hofstra University, having competed in swim meets here at an early age. Being familiar with the campus made Hofstra stand out to Farrell when he completed the college decision process, and he has made the most of his time here since. 

Early in his college career, Farrell planned on pursuing the psychology and counseling dual-degree program. However, when New York state changed the requirements for the program, Hofstra dropped it from its offerings. Farrell decided to continue with psychology but added the mass media studies major to learn more about the communications field.

Farrell noted Professor Terri Shapiro and Professor Brian McFadden as two instructors who have had an extremely significant impact on his academic journey. In McFadden’s celebrity and popular culture class, Farrell and his peers analyzed depictions of the apocalypse in various forms of media.

“It would talk about ‘The Walking Dead’ and how that was incorporated into the apocalypse and people’s fear of the unknown and any disaster situation,” Farrell said. “We connected it to [COVID-19] and how TV shows had to adapt to that when the time came to portray that kind of scenario.”

In Shapiro’s industrial-organizational psychology course, Farrell took a deep dive into learning about the workplace while also analyzing media once again. “We had to watch ‘Dirty Jobs’ and pick out a particular job, and mine was a golf ball collector,” Farrell said. “You go and dig the balls out from the trenches on a golf course and clean them up to resell them to other people.”

As much as Farrell has learned in the classroom, Farrell has also learned a significant amount from his various leadership roles. As a resident assistant, orientation leader and Pride guide, Farrell hopes to parlay the skills and experiences he has gained into a career in higher education following graduate school.

“The first job I started in the fall of 2019 was as a Pride guide,” Farrell stated, “and that granted [me] a lot of communication skills. You have to make sure to articulate a vision to families and [prospective] students, and you have to work and think on your feet. As an orientation leader starting in the summer of 2021, [I was] helping them out in that transition phase and being able to help them out in any way that I could as a general go-to.”

Farrell has furthered his campus involvement by working as an RA for the past two years. “A lot of that experience is just listening to residents and building trust,” Farrell said, “which is important because you can have all types of situations. Being a resource if anything happens is really the most important aspect of it.”

Farrell’s involvement with the Rabinowitz Honors College has also helped him throughout his college journey in a variety of ways. “Benefits-wise, you get a lot of opportunities to do things and go on extra trips,” Farrell said. “Otherwise, you get to be in a community and take classes in a collective environment. You have that shared experience that a lot of other students at Hofstra don’t necessarily have because they’re in different majors. I think that’s a bit different in terms of building relationships.”

In his free time, Farrell enjoys playing badminton and will dabble with writing parody songs for his friends.

“I don’t do it very often,” Farrell said, “but in certain circumstance or when people want me to do it, it’s pretty good. I did a parody of Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ and made it about being an RA. There’s a recording somewhere of me doing ‘Donut and a Treat,” which was [Bieber’s] ‘Beauty and a Beat’ but about Dunkin Donuts. People don’t really know I do that, but I really enjoy it.”

Looking back at his college career up to this point, Farrell noted the importance of building connections across campus. “Putting a pandemic into it is not really the experience you want to have, because you miss out on connections,” Farrell emphasized. “I try to be somebody who likes to build connections and having that was more of a goal after the pandemic came. I only went to my high school for three years, so this is more of a space that I’m able to grow through for a longer time, which will hopefully help me out later in my experience when the time comes.”

By pursuing leadership opportunities on campus and building a large list of connections, Farrell has made the most of his college experience and hopes to inspire others to do the same. “I always say to cherish every moment,” Farrell said. “The hourglass only has so much time in there and you don’t get to flip it over. Just take whatever time you have here and make it worthwhile to where you think you did everything that you could.”