The Stars Aligned for This #GT21 Grad

This weekend, Emily Rowe will graduate alongside her fiancé, who she met on the day of the 2017 solar eclipse. 
Emily Rowe's Graduation Picture

Emily Rowe's Graduation Picture

This weekend, Emily Rowe will graduate alongside her fiancé, who she met on the day of the 2017 solar eclipse — which also happened to be the first day of their first year at Tech. 

Rowe is a business administration major concentrating in supply chain management. The Tech white and gold colors have long been beloved by her family. Both her father and older brother  graduated from Georgia Tech, and her twin brother will follow in their footsteps in December.

During her time here, Rowe loved sports, the Yellow Jacket Marching Band, and cherished Tech traditions. Growing up, she’d go to football games and cheer with her family but as a student she stood side by side with the marching band. The tight-knit community provided some of her favorite memories of her college experience. 

Once elected as the RAT dad of the band, a marching band tradition where the elected members provide assistance to first-years in acclimating to Tech and the band, Rowe was in charge of new students and helped pass on her knowledge. After running for it every year since her first year, she was finally elected last May. 

“Knowing that the band trusted me to take on such an important position has been really nice and it’s been a great time to get to know all of the new members.”

Apart from her extracurricular activities and classes, Emily began dating Matthew Leonard, who is also part of the marching band. She likes to say, “The stars crossed the day that we met,” because of the eclipse. Their paths didn’t cross during marching band camp, but after meeting that day, their paths aligned. They will be getting married in July. 

With a job lined up after graduation and a new chapter waiting, Emily’s piece of advice for current students is to seek out internships and co-ops. “These longer times with a company are valuable,” she said. I ended up spending the pandemic tracking toilet paper production for Georgia-Pacific, something I definitely hadn’t anticipated when I started my internship in January.”

 

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