Unofficial Orientation Series: Student Groups

So you find yourself at Wes, having a good time, chilling out, sitting on Foss, eating at the ‘Dan in your sweatpants (I’m looking at you Wrestling team), when all of a sudden you realize something. You have no friends. None. It’s weird, you should’ve known something was amiss when your conversations with the chairs around you seemed a little one-sided, or when, looking back on it, all those high fives you’ve been handing out like condoms at Davison Health Center never really hit their target. Is it you? Sniff yourself…Try looking in the mirror. So you look and smell average-ish so that can’t be the problem. Oh I know, maybe it’s because you do nothing outside of going to class, eating, sleeping, and staring at the ceiling in your room…Freak.

Now, Wes has a whole mess of clubs and I can assure you that there is at least one that you’ll be able to fit into. While some people like myself love to overwork themselves so at the end of the day they can come home to a nice warm XL twin bed, kick their feet up and relax, it is also important to know that most like to adhere to a rule of 7. That means that you want to have around-ish or at most, 7 activities going on. That includes classes, jobs, clubs, and sports. So let’s put together a pretend schedule, shall we?

Let’s say I take the classes Politics of the Body (AMST293), The Biology of Sex (BIOL106), Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greek Culture (CCIV281), and, because I’m a tender soul, Feminist Theories (FGSS209). That’s 4 classes and coincidentally 4/7 so far. So let’s also say I want to dance with the WesBurlesque, and Sextacy crews. That’s all fine and good but that means I have to think nice and hard about my 7th activity. The answer is obvious! Join WesStuffed, the best Middletown based culinary blog in all of the land! That way I know where to get all of the best treats for when I’m hungry.

While officially recognized by the WSA, Wesleyan’s student groups have a good amount of freedom with what they do and how they present themselves. While the diversity of expression is awesome, the fact that you have so many clubs doing their own thing sometimes can make them hard to find. Which brings us to…

Student Group Directory

The WSA Student Groups Directory. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a directory, which holds a comprehensive list of the student groups on campus. Everything is sorted by categories and is fairly easy to use and search though and can be searched pretty easily by enlisting the help of the find function (CTRL+f/CMD+f). Even then, you might not be able to find what you want so try looking through the categories and click on random things because you probably didn’t know that instead of Rocky Horror Picture Show, you should’ve typed in Absent Toast…who knew.  Another thing, if you go look at it now, you’ll probably find what the clubs looked like under last years leadership, many of them are seniors that have left to the real world. Since there’s no indication of class year, you can try their emails and they can probably lead you to a nice person willing to help out with whatever information you need.

The Rest of the Internet

Now even though we know that the internet is a strange new world full of danger and wonders alike, I assure you that it’s not too hard to traverse. The world wide interwebs is full of many tools to help you find whatever information you need, including Yahoo, AOL, and who could forget the internet heavy-weight, NetZero? Now, my personal favorite is a new kid on the block known as Google. Simply by typing in what you’re searching for and hitting enter, you can find most anything you want! So many student groups have websites and what not off of Wesleyan servers including great places like Aural Wes, the Argus, and others. Some have websites that are hosted on Wesleyan.edu like the 8-to-8 listening service, Men’s Water Polo, and W’Escrime.

Obviously if you don’t know if they have a website, it could be hard to find or you might not try to find it to avoid wasting several seconds of your life. One thing you could do is to check out Wesleying’s very own links page.  If you want a added to the links page, email it to staff[at]wesleying[dot]edu. Also, tons of groups have events on Wesleying so search through our site to see if the had a meeting time or some event that you could go to. Long story short, the internet is the key blah blah blah. Do you really need to be told about the internet? It’s 2013. If you’re tired of becoming a brain dead vegetable in front of your computer and want a little face to face conversations, keep your calendar open for…

WSA Student Group Fair

Definitely my favorite way to do things is face to face. The WSA Student Group Fair offers a way to meet representatives from all of the groups that were not lazy, and reserved a table. Whether the table only holds a single student and a sign up sheet hastily torn out of college rule journal their mom bought at the Staples Back-to-School sale, or a whole posse of eager beavers with a glitter soaked tri-fold display bought by their collective mother at the Target Back-to-School sale, you’ll be able to get some face to face interaction and learn what the group is like straight from the mouth of a member.

WARNING: The representatives are all put through rigorous training to become like sirens to you, fresh faced Odysseus. Tie yourself to the post and plug your ears with beeswax. No matter what, tell your crew to not let you sign onto an email list UNLESS you are genuinely interested. I still receive emails from groups that I said to myself, “Eh, I think hearing from them about one or two meetings would be kinda cool just to get a feel about what they’re selling.” BUT after repeatedly asking to be removed I finally just made a filter to stop those emails. I’m a rising junior. I’m too old for this shit.

Interest Meetings

Until the Group Fair comes around, keep your eye here to Wesleying to see if some club that you’re interested in has posted an event about a meeting or anything that would mean a gathering of living bodies with an interest in the clubs purpose. Some umbrellas groups such as the Environmental Organizers Network (EON) or the University Organizing Committee are neat little tools to help find out about groups that are associated with them. If you were smart, and signed up for every email list that you could at the student fair, or have been handing out your business card to everyone you meet, that way, when a club wants to meet, they’ll be sure to let you know. Otherwise, keep checking our site, Wesleying, for updates that the groups might give.

Want to create your own?

It’s supa-dupa easy-peasy. Just get off of your lazy duff and register with the WSA, specifially the Community Committee (CoCo). I would give you a link straight to group registration, but their link is not working so I imagine you have to wait to the beginning of the school year maybe???? I don’t know. The thing is, is that registering with the CoCo gives you access to the sweet sweet store of greenbacks with which you can fuel your groups crazy misadventures. This money comes from sources like the Student Budget Committee (SBC) and the Student Activities & Leadership Development (SALD) office. Maybe you’ll just create a rogue group of vigilantes that steal from the Board of Trustees and give to the student groups until they let you register. I’m just throwing ideas out there. Happy Hunting!