How to get involved with your community

One of the opportunities provided through university is the opportunity to meet new people and form new friendships. This can be easier said than done! It involves putting yourself out there and socialising with people you don’t know, which for some people, including me, is their worst nightmare. Especially when you’re on a campus with over 20,000 ākonga, most of whom you’ve never met before.

Although it seems daunting, there are easy ways in which you can meet people right here on campus and that is through getting involved with your community. Whether it be a community such as UC Māori, or the rainbow community, or a club such as ENSOC or Entrée, these groups will provide you with lots of opportunities to meet new people in a comfortable setting.

To make it even easier for you to do this, here’s a simple three-step guide on how to get involved with your community. Hopefully, it can make you feel less worried about putting yourself out there and encourage you to go and join your community.

Step One: Find your community. This first step seems obvious, and that’s because it is. Before you can be involved with your community, you have to find it. Although this might sound difficult, it’s easier than you think, as UC is home to more than a hundred student-run clubs and many different communities. All you need to do is head to a Clubs Day, or find the UC website’s ‘Communities and clubs’ page.

Clubs Day takes place on the 20th and 21st of February, from 11am to 2pm, on the C Block Lawn and is the best place to find your people. This is because you can browse the numerous club and community stalls, where you can learn from members what they’re about – as well as the different events they hold throughout the year. This is probably the best way find your community, as you can meet the people already involved. This will make the events easier to go to further events down the line, as you’ll recognise familiar faces, and you can learn if this community is the right one for you.

If you can’t make it to a Clubs Day, have a read of the ‘Communities and clubs’ page on the UC website, to find more google ‘UC communities and clubs’! If you’re interested only in the student-run clubs, the UCSA website have a page where you can browse them, and it provides contact information. This is also easy to find through the UCSA website.

Step two: Join your community. Once you have found your community, it is crucial that you join it! This is simple: sign up at Clubs Day or follow the social media pages of the different clubs, communities, and student associations on campus. Many of these groups will have either Facebook or Instagram, or both, and can be found by looking up the name of the group on either platform or clicking the links on the UCSA’s ‘Clubs’ page.

Many of the communities at UC use social media to advertise their different events. If you’re looking to be an actively involved member, you’ll need to stay up to date on what is going on.

Step three: Go to the events! This is this the most important step when getting involved with your community. You can’t be an involved member if you don’t show up and get involved

I know going to an event can be easier said than done. I mean, not only is it intimidating going to an event full of people you don’t know, it can also be scary knowing you will have to try socialising with new people. However, I guarantee the events have a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, full of likeminded individuals as they’re a part of the community you resonate with.

Once you’ve gone to an event with your community, it makes it easier to continue to go to events, as you will at least know a couple of people for the future. However, if you go to the event and you don’t have a good time, it would have still been worth it. You won’t keep wondering, ‘what if?’

And that’s it!

Once you’ve completed these three easy steps, you should hopefully be involved in your community, or at least be on your way to becoming involved. I hope that if you’ve read this far, you’ll try out this guide and put yourself out there.