So you went to the Involvement Fair...now what?
By Danielle Collins ‘20
Hopefully you had a chance to go the Involvement Fair last week. Great! Now you’re probably wondering what to do with all the flyers you got, email lists you joined, and information you received. It can be hard to narrow it down. Here are some tips for what to do next:
Make a list
- Make a list of all of the organizations you spoke with that seemed interesting. Once you have a list, you’ll be able to see which ones are similar. You can either try to rule out orgs that are too similar to each other if you want to try different things, or focus on joining a lot of similar orgs if you’re passionate about a specific area.
Decide what your objective is
- Do you want to try new things? Keep up your favorite activities from high school? Join orgs that are very different from one another? Join orgs that all relate to one of your passions? Orgs range from academics, to volunteering, to athletics, to career, and so on, so you’ll have to decide what is most important to you. Try to balance fun with practicality. Look into some orgs just for fun, and some that will help you make the most of your college career.
Keep your inbox clean
- If you shared your email with a lot of orgs, you’ll have a lot of emails coming your way. Make sure to keep your inbox organized. Unsubscribe from any orgs you are no longer interested in joining. For the ones you’re still interested in, make different email folders to keep the info readily available.
Go to meetings
- Orgs will start having their first meetings this week, and most of those meetings are informational meetings geared towards recruiting new members. These meetings are the best way to learn more about an org and meet current and prospective members. You can also ask any questions you may have. Be sure to check it out!
- **Know that you can go to the informational meeting without committing to joining the org.
Check your schedule
- If there are a few orgs you’re interesting in joining, make sure you can fit them in your schedule. You don’t want to join too many things and spread yourself thin.
- Also, make sure that different orgs don’t have schedules that overlap. If two orgs meet Tuesday nights at 8pm, you might only be able to join one. Or, you can talk to people in the club and see if you can alternate weeks. Just be sure to think ahead so you don’t make too many commitments.
Didn’t get a chance to go to the Involvement Fair?
- Click this link to see a list of all of USC’s organizations and their emails. Feel free to email them to request info on joining!
USC has a lot of great orgs, and it can be overwhelming trying to decide what to join. Hopefully these tips will help make it a little easier. But if you try out as many as you want, and pick the ones that interest you the most and work with your schedule, I promise you’ll love the orgs you join.
Plug: We’re hiring new bloggers this semester! Didn’t get a chance to check out our booth at the Involvement Fair? Send us an email at usctrojans360@gmail.com for more information about joining the team!
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