Your college years can be some of the best years of your life. Maybe you’ll move away from home, but even if you still choose to live with your parents, you’re still likely to make new friends and experience so much while you’re in college. But even though you may have your friends back at home or your roommates, it’s still important to get involved on campus.
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It helps you experience the field you want to go into when you graduate
Nothing is more important these days than job experience. It seems like every employer is looking for their potential employees to have experience in the field they want to go into. It’s hard to get that experience if you’re just going to class. Don’t get me wrong, you can gain job experience from going to class and doing the work, but if you’re not applying those concepts you learned in class to what you’re doing outside of class, then you won’t really have anything to show for what you did in school when you go to apply for jobs after graduation.
It’s especially stressed for journalism majors. I don’t think I’ve gone to a journalism class where the professors aren’t stressing the importance of getting your work published. Even if you’re not a journalism major, it helps to prove that you know what you’re talking about, and writing for a publication, like Her Campus, can help prove that to future employers. If writing’s not your thing, joining a club can still help you get job experience since it’s likely that your club will have ways that you can prove to employers that you do know what you’re talking about and truly do enjoy your field.
It helps you make new friends
Don’t get me wrong, your friends at home are probably great people. I don’t know your friends personally, but they’re probably great people if they’re your friend. But if you’re living away from home, your friends there are probably busy, and even if you are living at home, your friends are probably still busy. You’ve gotta have friends on campus that you can hit up when you’re sitting in your room bored out of your mind with nothing else to do (or when you’re not feeling like at least starting that paper that’s due next week). Joining an organization on campus can give you those friends that you’ll not only share a common interest with but can also hang out with outside of activities and classes.
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You might be able to add it to your resume
If you get really involved in the club and take up an officer position, you’ll be able to add that to your resume. It’ll show that you can take on the duties of the position you have. Depending on the position, you may also pick up some valuable skills like event planning or marketing. It just depends on the position.
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You’ll be able to find others with common interests
The best part about clubs is that you’re around other people that are interested in at least one thing you are. Just walking in, you already share common ground with the other people in the room. That common ground can get you and the others in the organization talking, and those conversations can lead to you finding out that those in the organization share more than just one common interest with you.
Whatever your reason for joining an organization is, know that you’ll be able to at least find friendship in it. If you’re joining an organization that’s geared towards your major, then you might even be able to get some job experience in it too. You’ll have a lot more fun with your college experience if you join an organization (or two) while you’re at ODU than you would if you just went to class and went back to your room.