With over 4000 students, an ever-present Greek Life and more than 50 clubs and organizations, it is easy to lose yourself in the wave of students, when you first arrive on the campus.

Whether you are a first-year or a transfer student, being unexpectedly bombarded with random events by organizations you had no idea existed or the eerie silence of a Friday night on the yard, you must find ways to get involved on campus or suffer through crippling loneliness and boredom.

The anxiety that comes with entering a new place where everyone seems to have their lives together does not go amiss to any student on a college campus.

We have all been the new kid who didn’t know what to get involved in or who to talk to. Many people believe that once they meet people in class, the effects of boredom will escape them. Unfortunately, all they are doing is opening the door for them to be bored with people, which in turn usually leads to bad decision making as a group. By getting involved on campus, the worries that new students have about meeting people, resume building, and making the most of their college experience is instantly dispelled because they open the door for new possibilities, where all of those things are tangible in one place.

“Hi my name is..” No, correction: “Hey y’all my name is..”

Introducing yourself goes exactly how any Hollywood teenage movie assumes: practicing in the mirror, only to forget everything you thought you would say. Joining clubs works the same way unfortunately. You go to the interest meeting, where all the seasoned members look uninterested to listen to a speil they have heard for the past year, the newer kids sit in the back wearing headphones to avoid the whispers of “who’s that” and then there is the one person who’s always super eager to introduce themselves, making everything awkward. First days are just that awkward because you do not know anyone and nobody knows you, giving you a fresh start to be exactly who you want to be in that moment.
In that first meeting, you are the new kid with a sea of new ideas, a new group of people you may call friends, and a world of new opportunities waiting for you to go and get them.

Getting involved on campus not only gives you the opportunity to make the lifelong friends you hear your parents talk about, but it also gives you a tangible support system.

The people you meet through your involvement becomes the perfect way to build a solid foundation with teachers, other students, and supervisors who you can call on, in your time of need. They become the ones who will help you with your schedule, tell you what professors to select, and where buildings are.

Outside of the relationship building, involvement builds resumes. Every student at a college campus believes that the major they came in with is the one they are going to graduate with, when everyone knows that is not the case. All it takes is one conference, one class, one club to quickly change the minds of students.

One may come in as a chemistry major, join a club based on chemistry, and quickly decide the passion they thought they had for the subject was only short lived. On the other hand a person may go through those steps and decide that their love for the subject exceeds what they initially thought thus, building their resume with conferences and leadership positions within their organizations.

Going to college is not just to gain a degree; one should attend college for the experience. By being involved on campus, students are given the freedom and opportunity to make the most of being here. They allow themselves to live the college experience instead of watching everyone have fun on Snapchat. As much as people love to tweet about how fun being to yourself is, too much of a good thing is bad.

Involvement at ASU goes beyond joining clubs; to be involved is to take time to find what your school offers and place yourself within the mix of it. No one wants to look back and feel as if they watched the best years of their lives pass them by because they did not get involved at their university.