“I’m probably dancing more than I’m in class,” Paige Carlos said, laughing. As she serves as the head of the dance group Kuumba and the co-head of Groove, this statement is perhaps not so surprising. However, these groups are not all that take up her time; Carlos is involved in a variety of campus activities.

Carlos has been a Class of 2009 Senator since her freshman year and has had a show on Colgate’s radio station WRCU for the last three semesters. She also served as a member of the Link staff this year, an experience she enjoyed greatly and said she wished she had started earlier.

Still, dance is clearly Carlos’ passion and she devotes a great deal of time to her two groups. A member of Kuumba since her first year, Carlos now does much of the choreography for the group. Her responsibilities in Groove are even more time consuming. She is in charge of Dancefest, undertaking such duties as booking the Chapel for the event, organizing rehearsal times and spaces for all of the dance groups involved and supplying the many dancers with food and water during the event itself.

Carlos’ love of dance extends beyond her involvement at Colgate. Last summer she interned at a dance studio and learned about the administrative side of the business. She said that her “very far in the future” plan is to have her own dance company and studio.

As for a more immediate plan, Carlos, an Africana Studies Major with a History Minor, is applying to law schools for next year as well as looking into working either abroad or in the United States.

Though not initially as interested in Colgate as some other schools she looked at, Carlos is glad that she ended up here.

“Things happen the way they’re supposed to,” Carlos said.

Carlos will miss Colgate and the people she has met, but she is excited to start the next chapter of her life. “Whoever decided that college would be four years had a good idea,” Carlos said, “Four years is good.”

Carlos hopes that other students will appreciate their four years at Colgate and truly take time to enjoy what’s going on around them.

“We look back and wish we’d done it differently, we look ahead to whatever is coming, but we don’t enjoy the present enough,” Carlos said. “Just enjoy these moments.”