By Erin Cabrey

“Sleep and I have a love-hate relationship,” says Madeline McGuire, FCRH ’18. “I don’t really have free time.” McGuire, a communication and media studies major with a marketing minor, has a line-up of activities for her senior year that keeps her so busy that she had to schedule her week down to the hour during midterms.

The Garden City, Long Island native finds a good chunk of her time dedicated to her job as co-chair of Senior Week, meticulously planning events like Senior Toast, Senior Nights and the Check-It-Off series. Event planning is something she loves to do. “It’s exciting. I’m never bored,” McGuire explains.

McGuire chose Fordham for a number of reasons, one of which was the networking and employment opportunities provided by New York City. The main draw, however, was that her sister, Darcy McGuire, GSB ’16, went here. “I wanted to see what all the fun was about,” said McGuire.

The adjustment to college was not always easy, but connecting with other people helped her. That, and wandering around the city on her Wednesdays off, helped to develop her sense of adventure.

She really found her niche at Fordham her sophomore year, when she discovered her passion for event planning and marketing as she got involved with CAB and WFUV. “All of my experiences and internships started at FUV,” she says. “I realized how much I loved working at a radio station.” Her work there led to the opportunity to be the Event Marketing and Promotions Intern at Sirius XM her sophomore year.

During her junior year, McGuire headed to London for the fall semester, where she truly indulged in her sense of adventure, taking trips to cities like Oslo, Rome, Dublin and Barcelona. “I loved going to different countries and different cities, and only eating food from that country and really immersing myself there,” says McGuire.

In Europe, McGuire took advantage of her deep love of Christmas, because she did not have to wait until after Thanksgiving to start listening to her favorite holiday hits. “As soon as Halloween was over abroad, I made my ringtone ‘Believe’ by Josh Groban,” she says.

An essential fact about McGuire is that she loves the holiday season, a time when she can sing along to Christmas classics, watch It’s a Wonderful Life with her parents and three sisters, and eat bagels (Long Island has the best bagels, McGuire insists) and catch up with her friends.

While she feeds that senior year is going by far too fast, she cannot wait for Christmas at Fordham. “If we could just have Christmas forever,” she said. “School can last, but Christmas can come.”

However, she recognizes that her time remaining as a student is coming to an end, and is not quite ready for that reality. While she says she will miss learning in class, she will miss being so close to the friends she’s made the most. Fordham has allowed her to have friendships all across campus, like former floormates from Loschert and O’Hare, WFUV co-workers, Senior Week committee and gym friends. “I see my friends at Fordham as family,” she says. “We’re so comfortable and okay to be ourselves with each other.”

In advance of graduation, McGuire says she is keeping her options open. She currently has a consumer marketing internship at VH1 which she enjoys, and she is considering pursuing a job in that field. Though she knows she wants to live by a coast, she plans on applying to communications and marketing jobs in other countries like England, while she says her younger sister envisions her as a barista in Budapest. McGuire does not rule that out. “I mean, I love coffee. I could see myself doing that,” she says.

As for advice she would give to her freshman self, McGuire says “I’d tell her to chill out a lot. Everything’s fine. Don’t be scared to try new things and talk to people. It’s okay to mess up. I used to be so hard on myself. Failure is okay.”

With that wisdom in mind, McGuire is focused on enjoying each moment left at Fordham and is continuing to push herself to try new things. Right now, she is training for a 10K race at the end of the month. “I love exercising because it helps clear my head,” she says.

McGuire is confident that she will have time to train for a race on top of her numerous other commitments. Asserting that she does not need more than five hours of shut-eye a night, she repeats a famous “Maddie Mantra” that her friends have heard many times before: “Sleep is for the weak.”