Little Known Clubs to try at USC
By: Angela Wang ‘22 and Sophia Pei ‘22
Want to try something new? Try joining a new student organization here at USC! We know how overwhelming involvement fair can be, so we sat down and interviewed the Eboard of three new, exciting clubs! From magic to public speaking practice, keep reading to learn more about some cool organizations and expand your horizons!
USC Magic
Ever wanted to try learning magic? This is the perfect club to try!
What your club/organization is about?
The purpose of this club is to encourage, promote, and advance the art of magic, to preserve its history as an art form as an entertainment medium and as an amateur hobby, and to provide an organization for the pleasure, recreation, entertainment and education of USC student magicians and persons who have demonstrated an interest in the art and/or history of magic.
When was your club founded?
This semester (Spring 2021)
What kind of members are you looking for?
Anyone with a genuine interest in magic. Anyone who wants to learn whether professionally or just for fun or to impress people.
Do members need prior experience?
Absolutely not!
Are you selective?
Not at all. In fact, we also accept fringe acts like juggling, clowning, ventriloquism.
What values do you think describe your club best?
Inclusive, flying a little by the seat of our pants (we just started this semester!), and fun! We believe magic is truly a worthwhile activity. It can really cheer someone up, or leave them in wonderment, and it’s a great icebreaker.
What can members expect in a day to day meeting?
Members can expect a place to bounce ideas off of each other, a place to learn, to cultivate, to grow together and share a passion. Experienced magicians can participate in magic jams where they share what they’ve been working on while new members can expect structured lessons.
What events are planning on holding this semester or in the future?
Lectures from professional magicians over Zoom, magic shows, and possibly an end of the semester Member Showcase!
When does your club meet?
Wednesdays 8-9PM
What is the time commitment to your club?
About an hour a week! Members can also hang out on the club Discord. Meetings are optional, but you get what you put in.
Are there club dues? Things they need to buy?
There are no club dues as of yet, but members may need to pitch in to pay for professional performances on a show to show basis. It is also recommended to have a deck of cards, coins, rubber bands, things that are usually just lying around the house.
How large is your club?
Small right now, but size depends on who joins because there is no cap.
“Magic is unique in that sharing secrets is not something that is taken lightly, but we want to spread the love of magic to as many students as possible.”
See more about USC Magic Association by visiting their facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/SCmagicassociation/
*If any clubs or organizations want a magic show performance please shoot them a message!
Descent Magazine
Want to support the APIDA (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American) community? Interested in art or curating content for a magazine? Check out Descent!
What your club/organization is about?
We’re an APIDA art zine at USC. Our goal is to produce a semesterly zine that features works by APIDA artists at USC and to create not only a platform for them to share their works, but also a community of APIDA creators and people who want to support APIDA artists.
When was your club founded?
This is our first semester as a registered student organization (Spring 2021).
What kind of members are you looking for?
There are two types of members: Eboard and Community members.
Eboard works on producing the zine. Eboard members work with everyone who’s part of production and all the different editors for each section. There are three categories: visual art, writing, and multimedia and lots of different subcategories. We are currently looking for an outreach director to help us form relationships with other orgs on campus.
Community members can use our discord server. We just invite people to come and talk about artwork and creativity and it’s just a place to support each other.
Do members need prior experience?
Depends. As a community member, no! To be part of E-board, we do ask for previous work and a resume or portfolio.
Are you selective?
To be a community member, no!
To be on the E-board we have a limited number of open positions. We’re just kind of just looking to see how well you align with our organization’s mission and what skills you have that you can contribute.
Do your members need to be Asian Pacific Islander Dessie American to join?
Either the creator or the work has to show a relationship with the APIDA community. To be part of the community, all you need to do is to support APIDA artists.
What values do you think describes your club best?
Community building! That’s our biggest goal.
What is the time commitment to your organization?
For general members we mainly operate on Discord. You can be as active or inactive as you want. We’re planning on hosting a couple of events throughout the semester, but attendance is optional.
For E-board members, it’s more time consuming, because we have weekly meetings and responsibilities outside of those meetings like looking over submissions and putting together the zine. Our meetings are normally around an hour long, so maybe like two or three hours a week for e-board members
Do you have any club dues?
No.
What can members expect in a day to day meeting or your discord?
We have a lot of different channels, but it’s separated into channels for chatting, resources, advice, inspiration, and fun stuff like memes and games. And then we have a section for creativity to talk more specifically about what kind of art you’re interested in.
For board members, we separate it into production and marketing. For production, we talk about putting together the zine (going through submissions and identifying which ones we want to accept and how we could edit them to fit the zine if they need to be edited). For marketing and operations we talk about what kind of things we need to promote the zine scene, budgets, etc.
How large is your organization?
Right now, our E-board is 10 members. We have one or two members for each kind of position. Our goal is to have 14 members on e-board.
And then for the community members, our goal is to just to get as big and active as possible without being too overwhelming.
We’re in the middle of COVID now, but once we get back on campus, is your club going to operate differently in any way?
We want to produce a physical zine. Right now, we’re only doing a digital version, but once we’re in-person the logistics and everything for producing a physical copy would be a lot easier to do. We’d also like actual in-person events and meetings where we can see each other and be in the same time zone.
E-board applications are over, but if you’re interested in joining Descent Magazine’s discord or following them on social media check out this link!
Speak to Lead
Whether you were a star in your high school debate team or still stutter in your lab presentations, Speak to Lead is an opportunity to improve public speaking with a welcoming community.
Can you give a quick introduction as to what your club/organization is about?
At Speak to Lead, we’re trying to lower the level of entry into public speaking roles and practice. Our goal is to make public speaking more accessible to everyone: international students, shy people, people with learning disabilities. We’re trying our best to train everyone to be the best public speaker that they can be in job interviews or even just in class or in everyday life.
When was your club founded?
Fall 2019.
What kind of members are you looking for? Do members need prior experience?
We don’t require an application. So that to me means literally anyone can join us.
We’re looking for people that are really into public speaking. We’re looking at both advanced speakers and beginners, because we want to mix every level of speaking ability into our group.
I want to emphasize that you don’t need prior experience. Especially when it’s something like public speaking, everyone should be able to practice it without judgment. Anybody from master students to freshman can join.
What values do you think describe your club best?
Quirkiness, creativity, challenge, self-acceptance, personal growth.
Quirky and creative because I like to focus on improvisation games to warm us up. I try to create a stress-free environment, but I still want to challenge people. Also, self-acceptance and appreciation of the process, like personal growth.
What is the time commitment? What can members expect now day to day meeting?
We do bi-monthly meetings (twice a month) of about 40 minutes.
First, we do one or two improv games to break the ice and warm people up to speak in front of the camera. Then we do an activity like a mock job interview or pick a controversial topic and do a mock debate.
Are you planning on holding any events this semester or in the future?
Last semester we had two great guest speakers. One was a Marshall business professor, Dr. Snyder, he’s our advisor and he’s written a bunch of business leadership books and designed a lot of business communication courses. I hope to get him back again to lead us on a workshop. We always invite people to incorporate their teaching style and make it more unique.
Are there any club dues?
No dues!
How large is your club currently and how large do you plan on it being?
Our email list includes 110 people, but we usually get 5 or 10 per meeting. So, the goal is to somehow bridge that gap.
How has Covid-19 affected the way your club operates? How are you handling this?
It’s really reduced the amount of people who come because we used to have 20-25 people. It’s definitely made debates and improv games much more difficult because people who do public speaking enjoy being in front of people physically. But we’re doing our best, there are zoom techniques to learn zoom interview techniques. We hope to keep improving.
Is there anything else you would like prospective club members to know about this club?
It’s never too early or too late to want to improve your public speaking skills and don’t be shy. I would love to have diverse backgrounds, computer science literature, etc. I want everyone to join. Whoever wants to learn should come. Don’t be scared.
See more from Speak to Lead by following their Instagram @speaktoleadsc
Are you starting a new club on campus or want us to give your club a highlight? Contact us through our Instagram @Trojans360 or by email usctrojans360@gmail.com!
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