Clubs across Citrus gathered at the Club Connect Panel on June 3 inside the ED building to showcase how clubs may be of interest to students and to share wisdom on how running a club has affected their journey at Citrus.
“The purpose of it is to create a space where clubs can come into the panel and kind of share what they do, what their goal is, so students can have more information about some of these clubs.” Asian Culture Exchange club President Natalie Kwok said.
Asian Culture Exchange, American Red Cross on Campus, Real Estate, Latinos Unidos Student Association, Architecture, Gender Sexuality Alliance , and Citrus Clarion all shared their insight on how their club on campus changes their view of campus life.
Many students’ first year on campus is spent learning a foreign environment, and joining clubs may seem like a daunting idea to new students. Many students come to Citrus only to attend classes and return home. Campus clubs offer opportunity, connection, networking and experience for students looking to find community.
“I have my (BIO) 105s, which are like my 18-year-olds, but they’re too nervous. They’re not really at the step of like, ‘I’m going to join something,’” ACE adviser Jennifer Flores said. “I think everything is low stakes. Like, come and hang out with us. It’s not like… you’re saying you’re going to commit. If we get bodies in the room, that’s great. We’re just trying to have community, and that’s the most rewarding thing about it, too.”
After COVID-19, student involvement on campus dropped significantly as more and more students became accustomed to being purely online. What used to be a guaranteed attendance now can vary between a handful of students and just a single person. Clubs are now looking for student engagement on campus to make up for the damage COVID did.
“Prior to COVID, there were a lot of students that were constantly engaged.” AGS advisor Art Corral said. “ Events happening every semester, students showing up to events, and it wasn’t even a question. You just kind of knew that people were going to show up. Once COVID hit, everything changed, and it’s been kind of this slow grind to get people to kind of come out again.”
The fight to gather more and more students has increased since COVID, but there is still a lack of people from what there once was.
Although clubs mainly function off of the work of students, club advisers are there to make things go smoothly, and are a voice of guidance for the leaders of the club to work through ideas that club officers want to enact.
“I’m somebody that works in the background to help clear the way for you,” Corral said. “So I can bring forward proposals that I think might be a good idea. A lot of times our members will go along with it, but what I really want is for our members to guide the club.”
Clubs on campus are meant for students to find community and a step further into their academic lives.
“At first I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ There’s so many opportunities I found that I could just run away, and nothing could happen, but it’s more of a, ‘Why am I going to run away if I want to improve myself?’” Architecture club student Manuel Zepeda said. “That’s the reason why I came to school, is because I want to improve myself.”
