Why All Asian-American Students Should Consider Joining CIRCLE

By: Antonia Le ‘22

I might be an outlier when I say this, but there is nothing that I hate more than club recruitment season. It’s hard enough handling classes and homework, but trying to fill out a million applications and schedule a dozen interviews? Forget it. They say it’s supposed to get easier over time, but if it does, I haven’t hit that point yet.

I won’t lie. There are times where I’ve applied to a club/program just to apply to something and then regretted it. However, there are also clubs and programs that I will be thankful for every day, and CIRCLE is one of them. If you identify as an Asian or Pacific Islander, I suggest you read on and learn all about the amazing CIRCLE program.

According to its website, the CIRCLE program is “a seven-week educational leadership program focused on developing future Asian Pacific Islander community”. However, I consider CIRCLE another home.

Operating only during the fall semester, the CIRCLE program is set up by USC’s own Asian Pacific American Student Services office (APASS) in order to educate students about various social issues through an Asian-American perspective. CIRCLE itself stands for Critical Issues in Race, Class, and Leadership Education. The program runs for seven weeks, culminating in a fun, affordable retreat at the end for all participants. 

Based on description alone, CIRCLE may seem like just another class, but really, it’s so much more.

For one thing, though CIRCLE’s main goal is to educate, the meetings aren’t run like classes. If you become a CIRCLE participant, you’ll end up meeting once a week for two hours at a time to discuss the week’s topics. These sessions aren’t led by professors, but students who have gone through the program before, called TAs (Teaching Assistants). The environment is a lot more relaxed than most classes, as there are no grades or formal assignments, each session is capped at around ten people, and TAs always bring snacks. Last year, while I was a participant in CIRCLE, we once had three different kinds of Oreos on our snack table at once, in addition to other food.

The closest things you’ll ever get to “work” for CIRCLE are weekly readings, which generally comprise of easy-to-read articles you’re asked to read just so you can understand that week’s discussion topic.

CIRCLE is, first and foremost, a discussion based program. Every week, participants learn about and discuss different topics with respect to how they relate to Asian-Americans. This year’s topics include themes such as Identity, Race, and Sexuality.

As someone who was not taught much about Asian-American history in school, I liked being part of CIRCLE because it allowed me to engage with my history without making me take a dry class or buy a textbook. Instead, I was presented information in an easy-to-digest way. Despite my busy schedule, I always found time to read the articles my TAs would send me, and I always left my CIRCLE meetings knowing a little bit more than I did before. I don’t know of any other place where I could not only learn about not only Asian-American history, but also Asian-American LGBTQ history in such a relaxed, understandable manner.

In addition to teaching me more about my world, CIRCLE also gave me a space to talk about my experiences with other Asians. As someone who grew up in a very white, upper middle-class area, I was often unable to verbalize my opinions because nobody would understand. Moreover, I found it difficult to understand an Asian-American experience that was my own. Being in CIRCLE changed all that. It gave me a space to talk about my issues with people who would understand me, while also allowing me to interact with people from different places and backgrounds who I would have never encountered previously. By participating in CIRCLE, I was able to get in touch with who I was and the greater Asian-American community.

I came to CIRCLE to learn about my world, but I stayed because of the people I met. Over the course of seven weeks, the members of my CIRCLE group became some of my favorite people at USC. We bonded over everything, from shared experiences with microaggressions, to preferred snacks, to unpopular opinions on Crazy Rich Asians. 

Every organization says that they’ll help you make friends and grow as a person, but CIRCLE is one of the only programs that I’m joined that actually meant it. The knowledge that I’ve gained and the friends I’ve made will stay with me forever.

If you don’t believe me, let me tell you that I loved CIRCLE so much that I decided to return this year as a TA. We TAs aren’t like professors; this isn’t our day job. We’re doing this because we genuinely care about spreading knowledge about important issues facing our communities, and we want to give people the same positive experiences that we got. We’re here because we love this program, from the bottom of our hearts.

However, we cannot sustain the program on love alone, and we need more applications for the program to continue. Our application deadline is Friday, September 20, and it would mean the world to world to me if we got a few more applications.

I get it if you’re apprehensive about applying. Burnout is real, club recruitment season sucks, and sometimes you’re never sure if you have room in your schedule for another commitment. I went through all of these worries when I first applied to CIRCLE, but I have never regretted submitting my application for a minute. Whether you’re a freshman or a senior, if you identify as Asian-American or a Pacific Islander, there’s a place in CIRCLE for you. 

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