The Local: Where Aggies Connect With Aggieland
Alysha Noorani ‘19 uses her communication degree to connect her community in meaningful ways.
By Kira Schwarz ‘22
Alysha Noorani ‘19, a former student with a degree in communication, brings the Brazos Valley community together with events like The Local.
Alysha Noorani ‘19, a former student with a degree in communication, is the special event coordinator for events such as The Local at Lake Walk and runs Bella Noor, an event planning business she founded. Noorani’s event planning talents combined with her Aggie degree give her the ability to meet new people, unite her community and highlight dozens of small businesses.
Noorani has been creative since childhood. Her creativity comes in handy in her job at Lake Walk, which requires her to find innovative ways to connect people in the Brazos Valley community.
“I don’t think I realized a lot as a kid, but my mom had a lot of ways to kind of let me flourish with my creativity growing up,” Noorani said. “She always knew I had a knack for interior decorating, so no matter what day or time it was, I would always go into my basement and just kind of redecorate. One day I was a DJ. One day I was making houses out of little Legos. One day I was a teacher. I used to just play around with all of these different roles growing up and just kind of deciding what was for me and what wasn’t.”
Noorani carried her creativity and open-mindedness into her college years where she held leadership roles in several organizations, such as vice president of the Muslim Student Association. While serving in various leadership positions, she realized she had an event planning talent.
“A lot of those leadership roles facilitated events and put on events, whether they were social events or informative events and things of the sort,” Noorani said. “I worked in events quite often and it was just a common theme. As I got older, I just started realizing how much of a knack I had for it, with logistics and putting things together for a different cause, or working with nonprofits and helping them with their fundraising events and things of the sort.”
After graduating from Texas A&M University in 2019, Noorani decided to follow the encouragement of her friends and family and explore event planning as an occupation. Interning in Los Angeles with the public relations company Havas immersed her in this potential career.
“It was a lot of fun,” Noorani recalled. “I worked on their events team and basically helped them facilitate events for brands. One of the biggest events I worked on was a Chase Bank and Southwest Airlines collaboration, which was a lot of fun. They were promoting their new business card for small businesses, which is ironic because now I work a lot with small businesses. It’s kind of funny how that works, but it was great. It was a huge learning curve for me and learning the business to business aspect of events, and marketing and experiential events as they call it. It was a great experience, but after a little bit of time with them, I realized it’s not necessarily something I want to spend a lot of my time in.”
The Local takes place on Tuesdays from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and is held seasonally during spring and fall. It is located at Lake Walk in Bryan, Texas. | Photo by Anna Burson ’24
During her senior year of college, Noorani participated in a year-long internship with Voices For Children, a nonprofit organization located in Downtown Bryan. Her time there consisted of working fundraising events and facilitating programs to promote courtroom advocacy for abused and neglected children. After reflecting on her time in Los Angeles, she realized that her true calling was to serve her community.
“The Lakewalk job kind of fell into my lap after COVID-19,” Noorani recalled. “I always tell this to the kids that I mentor and that are still in school. Keep trying. Do the best you can. Keep making those connections and networking and try to stand out from the crowd and do something different that maybe the other applicant wouldn’t do, but just overall, also having faith and belief in making it in what you do.”
Noorani said she feels her decision to pursue a degree in communication helped her greatly in her career. With so much of her day to day life revolving around corresponding with clients, working on teams, and speaking with the media, the skills she developed in her courses strengthened her talents. Her minor in journalism also played a big part in her ability to conduct herself professionally when handling media and press relations.
“A lot of it, even just the media aspect, I learned in obtaining that minor in journalism,” Noorani said. “I use a lot of it in my current job right now, but it was something I did for a while in my prior years, and when I started my own company when I was 20.”
Noorani is grateful to be serving in her current position and promoting The Local. Her experience with event planning, public relations, and media make her feel well equipped to apply her skills towards celebrating and uniting people in the Bryan and College Station area.
The Local takes place on Tuesdays from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and is held seasonally during spring and fall. It is located at Lake Walk in Bryan, Texas.