Dear readers, as you all know, the Student Activities Fair was last week, and I hope you signed up for at least one club to join. Not to mention that it is a great way for you to get to know your classmates and make new friends. It is also a great way to find people in your major to ask advice from. I know, I know, this is really repetitive, hearing this from everyone else and now from me, but from my personal experience, joining a club is very important. For one thing, it will get you out of your room to do something besides go on your computer and surf the internet, watch a silly cat video, or go crazy from the homework load.

As you can see, I highly encourage you to join something or at the very least, participate in some kind of event that a club holds. During my first year at RPI, I didn’t join any clubs at all since I lived in Burdett Avenue Residence Hall , and I was too lazy to walk down the hill to go to a club meeting in the Rensselaer Union at night. Quite frankly, I was scared to go to a club meeting so late at night by myself. But I did go to events that the Chinese American Students Association held during the school year. It was a lot of fun; I met a lot of people that were in my classes that could help me with my homework. I would not have had the chance to meet a lot of the people I call my close friends if I had not gone to those events. To be honest, I would have missed out a lot if I didn’t push myself to attend one of those meetings.

Now my second year at RPI, I got a lot more active. I actually went to the Activities Fair and signed up for clubs and went to those club meetings and kept going to the club meetings. Now I’m involved with three clubs: CASA, Asian Cultural Union, and The Polytechnic (The Poly). It is a lot of work to continue to be involved with all these clubs and keep up with your school work, but it is well worth the effort. Taking leadership positions in clubs helps with communication skills, planning things efficiently, as well as getting to know who does what around campus.

Now, for my third year at RPI, I hold E-Board positions in two clubs as well as act as Copy Editor for The Poly. I want to take the chance now to invite everyone to attend one of CASA’s general body meetings; the first one is on September 13. Get to know one of the larger cultural clubs on campus as well as have fun and hang out with a lot of people. It doesn’t take a lot of time to join a club as a regular member; meetings are usually once a month so it doesn’t eat up your time to do other things.

If you are looking to put more commitment into a club or want to keep up-to-date about campus events and get free pizza, garlic knots, and soda, come join The Poly! We welcome everyone (especially writers)! One of my problems at RPI is that I stay out of the loop on what is going on around me; now that I work at The Poly I practically get the news first hand. Plus we all know free food is always good, right? Or at least it was a great incentive for me to join. So if you are free on Tuesday evenings, don’t have class Wednesday, or want to write for us, please feel free to stop by and visit us in Union 3418!