Optimizing the college experience | The Triangle

Optimizing the college experience

Omallca: Wikimedia
Omallca: Wikimedia

Being involved in a Drexel University student organization is something that can have all kinds of different benefits.

Being part of an organization is one of the most surefire ways to meet new people and develop new friendships. It can be challenging to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a public place. Why even bother with that when you have all of these different clubs at your fingertips?

When you mingle with someone in the same club as you, it’s more than likely that you will meet people who have the same interests you do. Even if you don’t find a club to be particularly interesting, you could meet somebody and build a connection at that club, and from there, the two of you can hang out both at the club meetings and in your freetime.

As a member of a student organization, you will also start to feel more attached to the university. For some people, Drexel is just a place where they are studying for a degree in some field and nothing more. Why have that kind of mindset when there is so much more to the school than just that? If all you’re doing is going to class, studying and then spending the rest of your day in your room having “you time,” then you are missing out on more than half of the fun.

It’s also been shown that some students do better when they are involved in school clubs and organizations in both grade school and college.

A study led by the University of Missouri at Kansas City reported that 71 percent of fraternity and sorority members continue to graduation , but half of students outside of Greek life don’t complete their degrees. The study also mentioned that those in Greek life maintained higher grade point averages compared to those unassociated with a fraternity or sorority.

This doesn’t apply to everyone of course, but if you think that joining a club might hinder your studying habits, then you should strongly reconsider. You can’t be sure about that sort of thing until you actually join something and see how it goes. And most organizations don’t even require their members to come to every meeting or event. It’s not as if you will be penalized just because you don’t show up. Almost every person that is involved in an organization is also a student at Drexel, so they will understand exactly what you mean when you have to study.

To put it simply, joining a student organization will make you a more diverse person. You’ll build a bigger network of friends and people that you know; you’ll become more attached to Drexel, and it will start to feel like more of a home and less of a school. You’ll have one more thing that you can add to the list of interesting stuff that you’ve done in college. And who doesn’t want to add more stuff to that list?