Tell me about your name! Is there a story behind it?

So, my name is Sunshine. Essentially, the story behind it is when my mom and a guy were dating in college, they would always talk about having kids. They always said, “If we have a girl, let’s name her Sunshine!” Just like any college relationship, they broke up. Later on, my mom was in a more serious relationship, and she was pregnant with me. While she was pregnant with me, she knew she was going to have a girl, and she had the idea of naming me “Amber.” At that point, my aunt stepped in and reminded my mom that she wanted to name her firstborn “Sunshine” if it were a girl. So, my mom went back to her original idea and named me Sunshine!

What would you do tomorrow if you had no obligations and no commitments?

If I had no obligations tomorrow… I’d have to check my bank account first to see how much money and freedom I had. I would probably drive down south along the coast to Myrtle Beach or Charleston. Just because I’ve never been to that part of South Carolina in a really long time. When I was a kid, I used to go down there every other month. So it’d be really nice to relive those memories. I feel like traveling by yourself gives you a lot of perspectives, and I’ve never traveled by myself. So I feel that it would not only be nostalgic, but I would be able to form new memories on my own and know that I did it by myself. 

If you could make one rule that everyone had to follow, what would it be?

If you’re on a skateboard or anything that has wheels on Chancellor’s Walk, you should stay in your designated lane. You don’t know how many times I’ve almost been run over because of that! So that would be my one rule.

People say that you should “have goals so big, you get uncomfortable telling small-minded people.” What is one of your big goals that might make a small-minded person uncomfortable?

I want to become the first female president of the United States. Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable. Being in Communication Studies and Pre-Law, that’s definitely the path I want to take after this. I want to go to law school, I want to practice law and eventually go into politics. It’s not about prestige or recognition. I want to give back because I grew up in a super low-income community in North Carolina. I grew up in Goldsboro. It’s tough to live in an environment like that. One of the main reasons it was hard to grow up in that situation was because there were no politicians or people in government looking out for us. I want to be the person that looks after the people who don’t have anyone fighting for them. Especially with today’s political climate, being a minority, and being a female in that position, I think that would make a lot of people uncomfortable. That’s a major goal of mine.