Student Organizations: Finding Your Fit

November 5, 2018

You never want to cut short your experiences when it comes to college.

One of the easiest ways to enhance an experience is to get involved. Joining a club or organization on a college campus is a great way to embrace the college experience. Student organizations offer a rare opportunity to learn, grow, and collaborate with peers without the pressure of a supervisor, teacher, or boss managing your time/resources.

What You Can Gain

Although it can seem a lot to balance between classes, social life, part-time jobs and more, joining a group or organization is well worth the investment of your time as it provides significant gains in your college experience. Even if you join a group to find out it is not for you, there is no requirement to stick with it. Either way chances are you made some connections.

Joining an organization allows you to learn more about yourself while developing your skills. You may become more self-aware about what your goals and strengths are through interacting and communicating with peers. You may be able to identify your work ethic, how to share ideas, and develop relationships. By being a member of a group you will practice being able to take advice from others and also give your own, an invaluable life skill to develop.

Student organizations are great for networking both on and off campus while focusing on your passion, interests, and/or identities. Student groups can become a home for you to connect with peers who share a similar purpose and challenges. Chances are when you join an organization, even if people have similar interests, they will be vastly different from you; providing a seamless opportunity to expand your network with diverse groups of people.

Use student groups to learn about people who are different to you or explore groups that do not align with your viewpoints to simply gain a new perspective that you can carry with you as you develop leadership. Along with making the most of your experience, please remember that you do not have to be in a leadership position to be a leader within a group and always seek out collaboration whenever possible.

Build Your Resume While Having Fun

Often student organizations are sold as resume padding. Yes, they look good on a resume. However, it is the involvement and relationships that shape your college experience. Finally, above all else, remember to have fun!