The Senior Gift Drive is a way for Northeastern’s graduating classes to give back to the university. I see it as a way to inspire someone to come to this incredible institution and pursue his or her dreams. Dreams that, for me, have been made possible by Northeastern University.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what the Senior Gift Drive stands for and what it aims to do. Yes, the Senior Gift Drive is a way for the Class of 2014 to give back to this amazing place we’ve been blessed to be a part of. It also allows you to give back directly to the area of the university that has made the greatest impact on your Northeastern experience. Whether that would be toward a specific scholarship, the soccer team or the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, you get to decide exactly where you participate. I say “participate” because that is all the Senior Gift Drive is asking for: participation. Donations are important and they allow us to make a monetary impact on our school, but participation is what we members of the gift drive committee are seeking. Participation inspires next year’s class to come out and beat us and continue to improve this university.

The gift drive allows us to better specific aspects of the university. By improving the Bouvé College of Health Sciences or the Engineering Club, you’re improving the university as a whole. This in turn significantly increases the value of your degree, which is what makes these four to five years all worth it at the end.

Four years ago, Northeastern was ranked 96th by US News & World Report for national universities. Today, we are ranked 49th. Four years ago, we had 756 donors to the Senior Gift Drive; last year, we had 1,678 donors. Each year that our participation has increased, our rankings have improved. I am not saying the Senior Gift Drive is the sole factor in our improvement, but it has had a definite impact. US News & World Report does indeed count giving among its ranking criteria.

By improving our school, you are giving someone a greater opportunity to join us here at Northeastern or inspiring a high school senior to become part of our community. At the end of the day, we should all be out there inspiring and encouraging people to have the same amazing experience I – and hopefully you – have had. So please, participate, be a part of this community, and inspire.

Northeastern has given us so much – why wouldn’t we want to share that?

-Karim Sabbidine is a senior finance and marketing major and the chair of the Senior Class Gift Drive.