This is our annual student activities fair, where you can schmooze, or more likely, be schmoozed, to your heart’s content
This is part of our 2022 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.
By the time classes start, you’ll likely be successfully moved into your dorm, blissfully free from your parents, and finally finding the time to figure your shit out. Soon, you’ll realize that you have a little too much time on your hands — and you might want to fill that time with Organized Social Activities.
Thankfully for you, there are about 300 student groups at Wesleyan, so you have many, many options. Joining student groups is one of the best way to meet people outside of your dorm and in different class years. You could find best friends! Mentors! Something new about yourself! It’s all up to you.
As your Orientation Leaders, advisors, and basically everyone else including me will tell you — stick to the Rule of Seven. Each class you take, group you join, job you have, and any other thing you might do counts as one commitment, and you should try to have only seven full-time commitments per semester. With a standard four-course load, that leaves three spots for you to fill with whatever the hell else you want. That’s what this post is for.
Student Group Directory
All student groups that are funded and sanctioned by the Wesleyan Student Assembly are managed and organized on Wesnest, whose picture is above. You may be wondering: what the hell is Absent Toast (it’s our fabulous Rocky Horror Picture Show Shadow Cast–v sexy, v fun)? You can find out by using your Wesleyan login to browse all of the groups that are active on campus. This centralized system will help you find what you’re looking for, even if you’re not sure what that is yet.
The Internet
However, not all student groups are going to be on Wesnest. If you’re looking for something specific and or still having trouble remembering your EP
ortfolio password, you can always just Google it. Putting “student group / activity name Wesleyan” in your search bar will give you decent results. Many of the groups’ websites are hosted on the student group server, with sites ending in .stugroup.wesleyan.edu or .group.wesleyan.edu.
Wesleying also has a page of links that may or may not be helpful in your search. (We sort of haven’t updated it in a while? We’re working on it.) If you want your student group included in our Links page, email staff[at]wesleying[dot]org and we’ll update it as quickly as we can. We also posted a social media directory, which could also help you find what you’re looking for.
Keep checking back here, too — student groups submit their events to us throughout the year, whether they be interest meetings or activities. We post nearly all of them. There are so many, so I think your chances of finding the ~group of your dreams~ are pretty good.
Student Activities Fair 2022: Friday, Sept 9th, 2-5pm
The Ankh is of of Wesleyan’s ~official~ publications that you can join
Like any good liberal arts school, Wesleyan has not one, not two, but THREE ultimate frisbee teams.
The WSA holds a Student Activities Fa
ir every year so that you can browse for your future all-consuming time commitment in person. You can talk to a real human if you have questions about the group, are trying to decide which dance group to join, or just want a bunch of free candy. This fair is one of the most important things you could go to, if not just to look around.
As alt wrote last year:
Be careful though. I’m sure you’re excited to check out all that Wesleyan has to offer when it comes to student groups, and these student group leaders will be surely armed with candy or cookies, all in an effort to get you to simply sign up for their email listservs. Do this with caution. If you don’t see yourself joining the group at all or even participating in the group long-term,
it’s best to avoid giving them your email and signing up. My email account still cries from freely signing up for too many things—they’ll never take you off the listserv, no matter how you beg.
It’s true. You’ll probably put your email on ten different sheets of paper. You’ll emerge with pockets full of chocolate and emails out the wazoo. I would advise doing your research before you go to the fair so that you can seek out the tables of the groups you already know you’re interested in first.
Create Your Own
Gonna copy-paste this from last year because it is t
he same and very straight-forward:
It’s surprisingly easy to create your own student group. Student group registration is handled by the WSA, and recognition comes from CoCo, or the Community Committee. By registering with CoCo, you get access to the student activities fund handled by the SBC, or Student Budget Committee, and the Student Activities & Leadership Development (SALD) office, which comes in handy when you’re planning events or other group activities.
Get more information on student group recognition from CoCo and student activities funding from the SBC.
Funds! Organization! Camaraderie!
And hey — there’s a lot of pressure at Wesleyan to ~do it all,~ but stick to you
r gut, heed the Rule of Seven, and keep this semester comfortable. There’s always spring semester (and the next three years) to make all the mistakes try new things. You could gleefully ignore the Rule and take five classes and join four clubs because they’re all so cool, but consider this: SLEEP. Sleep is a wonderful thing, and you won’t get nearly enough of it. Balancing fun and work and school is already a tough adjustment, don’t make it too hard on yourself by signing up for every single group at the student activity fair. That will almost certainly end with you crying on the first floor of Usdan by October. (And listen, it is oka
y to cry in Usdan. It seems like everyone is doing it.) Join a couple clubs and have fun, but don’t be afraid to take this semester/year to get your bearings first. The camaraderie will always be there for you.
If you have any questions that we didn’t answer, leave us a comment below, email us at staff[at]wesleying[dot]org, or tweet at us @wesleying.