Brianne Kane – Copy Editor
By far the coolest part of college is being able to academically experiment, socially experiment, and mentally test yourself. Using your time at Southern carefully and diligently is repeated to the student body at least a million times a day – but how should you use your time?
Join a club. Join a club. Join a club. But don’t just join any club to pad your resume and meet cute peers. Joins clubs that inspire you, clubs that focus on something you’re fascinated with and didn’t know anyone else cared about, make a club if you have to. Joining clubs while at college is the best way to use your time carefully and diligently, especially ones that you can make a future out of.
Relay for Life is a major campus event held every year, sponsored by Colleges Against Cancer as well as many others. Colleges Against Cancer states that their purpose is to give students “the opportunity to bring the fight against cancer to campus” but it also opens the doors for a lot of students to get involved in charity work, get involved with CAC, and even meet new people to be future connections.
Junior Jess Weimann said she knows she’ll work with Colleges Against Cancer and Relay for Life in the future. “It’s really nice to see people come together over a common cause, and while it was a lot of work, it always pays off.”
Weimann found something she was interested in, and became passionate about it through joining Colleges Against Cancer on campus. Weimann said, “[I] will continue to fundraise and raise awareness as much as possible [for the cause].”
If a quick search of SCSU clubs doesn’t spike your interest, don’t forget about the sports teams! Getting involved can be as easy as playing your favorite game, and can lead you through new doors that you thought had long closed. Sophomore Sabrina Hersey admits that she loved gymnastics her whole life and was thrilled to join the cheerleading team at SCSU.
After a few serious injuries however, Hersey was forced to retire from cheerleading – now what? “After the repeated injuries, I couldn’t compete anymore but that didn’t stop me from wanting to be around the sport. So I decided to coach so I can still be involved!”
Hersey found a new outlet for herself by seeing the devotion and joy her coaches had while growing up. She discovered coaching would be the perfect way for her to stay active in her sport without competing.
Judicial Affairs also has a list of volunteer opportunities on their website which all can be a starting point for inspiration and further volunteerism. For example, volunteering with the New Haven Reads Program can be a starting point to becoming a tutor or realizing that you want to become a teacher. Another option is the Yale New Haven Hospital where you can volunteer anytime, and possibly discover you could make a career out of being a caretaker.
The Women’s Center is a great stepping stone to volunteerism and professional work within the public health field. The Women’s Center works closely with neighborhood shelters and domestic violence organizations.
The Big Event and Day of Service are likely the easiest ways to volunteer on campus, because they are semesterly events SCSU holds which sends students all over New Haven volunteering in soup kitchens, gardens and even picking up trash. Even if serving soup doesn’t sound like something you’d like to make a career out of, volunteering can be a stepping stone to seeing how kitchens operate or how non for profit groups operate.
Joining clubs and experimenting with your interests in a central part of college, and one you can easily make worth your while.
