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Lea Musisi

April 12th, 2016

Find your Society!

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Lea Musisi

April 12th, 2016

Find your Society!

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Although this blog post could apply to any society, I’ve written about the society that I know most about because of my involvement in it; the ACS, the Afro-Caribbean Society. (which isn’t to say you should stop reading if you don’t have any interest in joining LSE’s or any other ACS, this can be applied to any society).

To start off; a  very typical piece of advice that freshers get before joining university is to join as many societies as possible, and to pay your membership. It’s a rather standard  piece of advice which realistically doesn’t mean very much to you until you’re actually a part of a society, because you think that you already know what being in a society means, and you’re pretty convinced that news of any upcoming events will be relayed back to you anyway.

This is idealism in its highest form. (or at least it was in my case)

One of my biggest mistakes when joining the ACS was that I joined LATE. I met the current ACS president at a stall during the Fresher’s fair, and I smiled and listened to what each of the members there were saying, enthusiastically emphasising that I too would join the ACS as I had every intention of doing so! But I didn’t feel like I needed to pay membership to actually be a part of the ACS because well…I was Afro-Caribbean whether I paid the £1.50 or not.

Realistically, people may be able to get away with not paying membership if they already know a lot of official members, because that way you’ll hear about the events from your friends anyway, and you can just go along with them when the time comes (the obvious loophole!) but because I didn’t know anyone in the ACS, me not paying membership meant that I didn’t receive any of the emails they sent, notifying members of upcoming events. Consequently, it took me even longer to actually meet the people in the ACS.

For the duration of my fraudulent membership status, I managed to miss the first social, a comedy show, and a clubbing event. What makes this even more upsetting is that upon making friends with the majority of the other members (in about February, during preparation for our annual culture show Ablaze) I managed to find out that quite a few of them had met each other already prior to the Christmas break. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAD PAID MEMBERSHIP.

In addition to this, I should also state that paid members tend to get subsidised tickets to events, and often get freebies so…it really is worth paying.

Aside from stressing the importance of actually validating your membership of a society, this post is also to encourage any potential freshers to actually join a society. Any society. It’s integral not to be put off of meeting a new group of people just because you think you’ve found your group of friends after the first two or three weeks of university. I would say that my closest friends are the ones that I have made at my student halls (inevitably) but I really value the connection that I have with the people in the ACS because I feel like it’s a group of friends that I have made not only because of what we have in common (culture, music etc., let me emphasise that the ACS is far more than just being black!) but also because of the fact that being a part of the society is a choice that I consciously made myself. We have so much fun because no one is a member under duress.

I’ve had so much fun in their company in the short time we have spent with each other this term (again; short because of my lack of membership, *sigh*) that I ran for, and am currently the secretary for the ACS for 2016-17!

I would also advise joining a variety of societies. For example maybe a cultural one, a sporty one and one that’s a general hobby like the craft society. This is because you won’t be as enthusiastic about all of them, so this will make it easier for you to identify which you enjoy the most. No one is going to shun you for dropping out of something that you don’t enjoy as much as you thought you would. For example, I’m technically a member of the basketball team, and although I love playing basketball, my attendance this term has been….poor to say the least. Taking this into account, I’ve gone to every ACS event since commencing my membership payment!

You’ll definitely find that when it comes to a society that you really connect with, you’ll make the time, even when you’re busy. A final  point to reinforce though, is that if you don’t join a society, you don’t have to regret it for the whole of the year. You can join societies at any time during the year, but inevitably the beginning of the year will be when it is easiest to make friends and not feel shy about it, so I recommend joining as soon as you feel any flutter of interest!

The Fresher’s fair is your oyster!

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Lea Musisi

Posted In: Student life

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