After making a speech last April in front of 1900 people at SUNY Cortland's open house, Jacob Mezrahi realized what he wanted to do in his sophomore year, be president of the Student Government Association (SGA).

Though the interest in politics always seemed to be there, the Mineola High School Class of 1998 graduate had a greater desire to learn to teach and to become an artist, and went to college to follow that road.

But during his first year, Mezrahi joined several clubs and "a bunch of committees," and later made several speeches to prospective students at the open house. All this brought a new dimension to his college experience.

"I was determined after that," he said.

So he put his artistic and people skills to work and ran against Brad Browning, a sophomore, for the SGA president position. His campaigning included designing posters, chalking sidewalks and knocking on all the residence hall doors.

Mezrahi also used his name recognition from his membership in student government and clubs on campus. He was a SGA senator in his first semester, and SGA executive assistant to the president in his second. He was also a member of Phi Eta Sigma - the Freshman Honor Society, a panelist at an open town meeting about alcohol, a member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and he wrote newspaper articles for the school paper, The Dragon Chronicle.

His strategy was successful and he won, becoming the first freshman to be elected to the student government's top position.

Now, the health education student with a minor in biology is facing problems that most heads of organizations and governments deal with when there is a change at the top. Besides modernizing and organizing the student government, he has to work out a new budget for the more than 40 clubs on campus.

"We govern all the student activities," he said. "We take the students Mandatory Activity fee and distribute it to clubs and special events. It's very time consuming, with lots of meetings. And everybody wants you to be their friend."

To get a head start on his upcoming one-year term that officially begins in September, Mezrahi has been up in Cortland for a month and a half. While there, he is using the summer to represent student government and student life to prospective freshman at orientation sessions.

While the job seems overwhelming at times, Mezrahi is already starting to feel the benefits of such a high and powerful position.

"It's very rewarding," he said. "You meet a lot of new people, and you have a lot of respect."

He also has the full backing from his family to fall back on. "They've always been supportive of anything I did," he said, explaining that they visited him in Cortland on several occasions and "anytime I asked them to, they came up."

But with the term just starting, Mezrahi is unsure about whether he will run for re-election. He wants to make sure taking on more responsibilities won't cut into his school work. At present, he is maintaining a 3.6 grade point average, and is working on going to graduate school a year earlier than planned.

He also has to figure out if it will conflict with his mandatory student teaching. Mezrahi explained that according to school rules, a student can't hold office and teach at the same time. But if it all works out, he would have no hesitation in running for another term.