The start of college opens plenty of doors — including the chance to explore different interests, meet new people, and become a better leader. Joining one of the extracurricular clubs at Stevens, officially called Registered Student Organizations (RSOs), allows you to pursue all three of the aforementioned opportunities.
There are over 110 student-run RSOs at Stevens. RSO meetings and events are free and open to all undergraduate students, so you can pop by at any time. There are also non-RSOs, which are essentially clubs where students can attain official memberships through an electoral, application, or audition process. Both the Student Government Association (SGA) and the Honor Board hold freshman elections in the fall semester, but you can still find ways to be involved without running for a position. A great place to start exploring clubs is at the involvement fair (dubbed the Flock Party) on the last day of orientation. You can visit tables with representatives from pretty much every existing organization on campus. There, you can ask members of the club about what they do on campus, when they meet, and usually sign up for an email list to receive updates.
Another place where you can browse through all of the clubs at Stevens, this time virtually, would be on DuckLink. DuckLink is accessible through a link on your myStevens homepage and almost every club has a page on DuckLink. DuckLink allows you to view the executive board of the organization, a contactable email address, and upcoming meetings and events that the RSO will be hosting. You can even view an RSO’s governing documents on DuckLink if you are interested in the nitty-gritty.
You can also download the Corq mobile app to view upcoming events and meetings and access your event pass. Your digital event pass is necessary to get into club events and sometimes for attendance at meetings.
It is never too early or too late to join an RSO! As long as you know when and where a club meeting or event is being hosted, which you can with the previously mentioned DuckLink webpage and Corq app, you can come by any time. You define your own extracurricular experience at Stevens. You can be super involved in a club and run to be on the executive board in the Spring semester of your freshman year, or you can just swing by occasional meetings. You can even attend events for organizations that you’ve never been to before! Attending club meetings and events will let you meet a bunch of new people in a casual and social setting.
Being involved in a club and running for a formal position also provides great leadership experience outside of the classroom. Being on the executive board can improve your communication and teamwork skills, your ability to plan events, your ability to think ahead, and just really lets you leave an impact on something you’re passionate about.
There is no limit to how many club meetings and events you can attend, so the extracurricular sphere gives you the chance to explore all of your interests as well as be exposed to new things. Stevens has clubs in different areas including cultural, professional societies, media, special interests, club sports, arts and music, recreation, electronics and gaming, service, religious and faith-based, and more. If you feel like there is a club missing from the extracurricular sphere, you can always start your own! You can’t do so your first semester, but after that, feel free to take advantage of the New Organization Process (NOP) Interest Period at the start of every semester. If you are interested in the specifics of starting your own club, you can read the NOP or reach out to an official of the SGA.
The SGA’s Vice-President of Student Interests, Nina Ioanis, who assists RSOs and oversees the NOP shares that, “You’ll probably hear this a million times, but I think the greatest takeaway I’ve received from college is the network of opened doors I’ve received from people involved in clubs. Getting involved in an organization, meeting different people from different years/majors/walks of life/etc., going out to conferences with the group, and exposing yourself to a new concept or hobby that you’ve never explored before also really helps to expand both your perspective of the world and the toolbox of things you use to navigate that world.” Ioanis continues to explain that, “Going out to that first GBM or helping to set-up an event can also help you to find the people you’ll end up spending your whole college career with. Class doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to socialize, so it’s really easy to end up stuck in the rut of just school all the time. We’ve all been there. While getting involved may not help to fish you out of an ocean of work, finding people to accompany you in the rut can make your time there pass a lot easier. The ‘old people’ also love giving advice (myself included)! Having a group of upperclassmen in an organization to reach out to for whatever help you might need (in school, the professional world, or life in general) is a very nice thing to have.”
RSO-involvement is really as much or as little as you make of it, but it is a great place to become more involved on campus, meet other students, and learn skills that can’t always be taught in a classroom. Don’t be afraid to expand your horizons and explore a passion!
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