When starting university last year, I was certain that I would join at least one club or society. In the end I joined one of each, dancing club and psychology society. I always intended to join the dance club as I have always loved dancing but I also wanted to join because I wanted to give myself the opportunity to meet more people especially people with similar interests to me. This worked for me as I met someone there who I now consider one of my closest friends.
Clubs and societies are good for enabling you to meet people who are in different years to you. When living in student accommodation and studying your course, it is most common to make friends with people from your own year group and course but it is nice having friends from different years and courses. The Psychology Society meant that I made friends with four third year psychology students who were an endless source of support and information about what was to come in my course.
The best way I found to join a club or society was to go along to the clubs and societies fair during welcome week and speak to them about what they do. If it is still something that you want to do then find out if they have a ‘give it a go’ session which is usually through welcome week or the following week. This gives you a chance to get an understanding of how things work and see if you still want to join it before you pay any money. Once you are sure you want to join, you can find out when their usual sessions are and go onto the student union website to pay for the membership fees which are usually very reasonably priced. A £3.00 insurance payment is required but this only has to be paid once per year regardless of the number of clubs or societies you join.
Going to the ‘give it a go’ sessions does not tie you into staying in the club or society at all so you can go to as many as you wish and see what you enjoy most. Joining more than one gives you many benefits including meeting friends, keeping fit, staving off any boredom and much more, however make sure you can fit them all in while giving enough time to your studies. It is easy to get carried away and buy loads of memberships that you will never have time to use.
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