Joining a society: the best way to make the most of university life

Unsure of what to expect when you join a society? Our second year undergraduate student, Mario shares his journey from deciding which societies to join to the amazing opportunities available to him.

When I first arrived at university, I remember that the second and final year students all said that one of the best ways to get involved in university life was to join societies. They all seemed to pretty much say the same thing - with the huge number of societies Warwick has to offer, there is something for everyone. And it’s true.

When I went to the societies fair in the first week of term, I was amazed by the number of societies there were and ended up leaving the Welcome Week society fair with around 10-15 flyers from different societies as well as signing up to a bunch of different mailing lists. In the following week, I went to a few different events to see how I could get involved. One of the societies I was most interested in from the very beginning was TEDxWarwick. As someone who has always watched TED talks and found them super interesting, I wanted to see if I could be a part of it here at university. I decided to apply for a position within the Corporate Relations team at TEDxWarwick as I wanted to try something different and expand my skills. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up getting the position and I later found out that I was up against a lot of competition due to the number of applications that had been received.

Over the weeks that followed, I continued applying for roles in different societies. It can sometimes be daunting to look at the vast list of societies available and not know where to start in the application process. This is why the societies fair was so crucial to me because it gave me the opportunity to ask members of the teams specifically how the recruitment process worked, what they looked for and determine whether the position suited me or not. Additionally, most societies operate through Facebook by advertising current positions and the applicable deadlines to apply so lots of information can also be found there.

Applying for these positions entails writing a lot about yourself. Common questions include why you are interested in the position or the society, why you want to take on the role in question and what attributes or experience you have that explains why you should be successful. Through this process, I ended up becoming a Marketing Representative for Warwick Risk Management, and Head of Corporate Relations for a project that had just started called Unify Warwick. A friend also told me at the time about an online tutoring service they had recently started working for, and out of curiosity I applied and soon started giving lessons on MyTutor online.

During term two of my first year, I heard that TEDxWarwick was recruiting volunteers for a big conference at the beginning of March and since I still really wanted to be a part of the team in whatever way I could, I applied. Fortunately, I was successful, and I became part of the team, responsible for creating one of the biggest student-run conferences in Europe here at Warwick which was an amazing experience. When it came to my second year at WBS, I wanted to be even more involved, and do even more with the societies I was part of. This year, I finally became a TEDxWarwick Corporate Relations team member after re-applying. I am also currently a WBS Marketing Ambassador, Head of Publicity for a new project I am currently working on with a friend called The Connector Movement, and I am continuing my role as an online tutor. I'm also a Marketing Insight Series Ambassador, which means I get to attend all of the Marketing Insight Series events hosted at WBS.

Personally, being a part of so much has allowed me to meet many extraordinary people I otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet. I feel very lucky to have had these amazing opportunities to participate in such unique groups. I like to be busy and to feel that I am not wasting my time. Through these societies, I am able to learn lots of different skills while simultaneously getting to know lots of wonderful people. Joining these societies has made me feel like I am really making the most of my time at university and I am absolutely loving it. To reiterate what seemingly everyone told me when I was a fresher, being a part of these activities is definitely one of the big highlights of my time at University.

Discover more about the amazing array of societies you can get involved in by reading our student society blog by Nadia and James.