There’s something for everyone with more than 300 registered organizations on the USC campus.
Or if you can’t find exactly what you want, you have a limitless amount of time to change that. USC is registering new student organizations on a weekly or monthly basis.
“We let it happen ongoing throughout the year, so really any time that a student is interested or finds something they may be passionate about or finds something that doesn’t exist on campus, they can come meet with our office, meet with the Leadership and Service Center to start the process to register a new student organization,” said Allison Toney, a leadership coach with the USC Department of Student Life.
Toney describes the process of starting a new organization as “fairly easy.” The organization must write a Constitution, and Student Life can provide samples and explain requirements. Potential organizations must also have 10 full-time students sign a petition in support starting it, a full-time faculty or staff advisor and an explanation of why they’re interested in starting a new organization.
The Leadership and Service Center is more than happy to guide potential student organizations through the process.
“We’re always willing to meet with folks to try to get stuff started if they see that’s something’s missing on campus, so we’re happy to help them start an organization or if an organization once existed on campus but is not currently registered, helping them re-register it,” Toney said. “We can go through all those steps with students.”
Start of something new
USC has many well-established clubs on campus, and fraternities and sororities are some of the oldest. Some of the oldest organizations at USC include the Euphradian Society (1806), Chi Psi (1858) and Phi Beta Kappa (1926).
But if you’re looking for something a little bit modern, Snaps Music Appreciation is one of the newest clubs available. Andrew Ferguson, a second-year business management and history student, formed the organization halfway through June 2014.
They’ve had 24 meetings since becoming official, and club members bring full albums that they want to share with the rest of the members. According to Ferguson, it’s a different concept for a club.
“It’s just good people hanging out with good music on,” Ferguson said. “I’ve pitched this idea to somebody before and the were just like ‘isn’t that what every college student does, sit around in a room with friends with music on?’ And yeah, but we’re a little more music based.”
Ferguson went to a small private high school, and, although he had plenty of friends, he never found people who shared the same passion for music.
“Something that I always wanted were friends that I could share music with.” Ferguson said. “I really just wanted to find people at USC that felt the same way I did, had music that played a part in their life that we can just share it with, and that’s really where the idea came from.”
Now that he has Snaps Music Appreciation, he has found even more of a connection on a music-level than he expected.
“We’ve got a lot of different people in the club. We’ve got people that never thought they would be listening to Led Zeppelin. We’ve got people who never thought that they would be listening to Arctic Monkeys, or James Brown, or jazz even,” Ferguson said. “It’s an eclectic mix.”
Snaps usually has a week-by-week informal meeting, but they sometimes host small events. They had a Christmas party last year where they listened to Elvis’ Christmas album, and they pulled names out of hat for their end of the year party to see who would get to play their album.
This year, they plan on hosting a series of blues nights. Before they begin playing the music, they will share some blues history, which Ferguson said is “far more of an appreciation than it is an education.”
“By being exposed to all of these different things people will find that they like different things,” Ferguson said. “The more you love music the more you love. I’ve found that to be true. Ever since I came to USC, started talking to more people, different people … there’s a lot of good stuff out there. I never thought I’d be listening to hip-hop and there’s a kid in the club who’s got me listening to Wu-Tang Clan.”
Ferguson said that Snaps Music Appreciation is a casual organization, and members usually attend meetings whenever it fits their schedule. He’s found, however, that many people stay for more than just the music.
“The people that are in it really enjoy it, not just for the music, but for the people that are in it,” Ferguson said. “We have eclectic tastes in music, but we also have a wide range of people. If you look at history, one of the few mediators between different demographics or types of people is music.”
Students who are interested in becoming a part of Snaps Music Appreciation can check them out at the student organization fair. They will not be charging dues as of this point, and Ferguson promises a “relaxed atmosphere.”
Producing professionalism
According to Austin Dain, a fourth-year management and marketing student and president of the Entrepreneurship Club, entrepreneurship can “be condensed down to doing new things in new ways.”
The Entrepreneurship Club hosts bi-weekly meets to help students with bright ideas. Meetings usually consist of guest speakers from local small businesses or even business from outside of South Carolina, as well as people from the entrepreneurship community that run businesses that aim to help make other companies a reality.
“The Entrepreneurship Club is basically all the students who are interested in having their own business, creating their own business, or, more broadly, or just the idea that ideas can really revitalize and help a business grow,” Dain said.
If this sounds like you, the Entrepreneurship Club is hoping to give you a new approach to what they’ve done in the past. Instead of limiting themselves to lecture-like meetings, they are working to create more of a community.
Members will be able to pitch their own ideas during meetings, club members will be encouraged to participate in discussions about how to make hypothetical businesses or even real businesses better and participants will work together in creativity-spurring activities created to help them think of new ideas or new ways to approach their old ideas.
The Entrepreneurship Club is working on starting its own venture. One of their most promising ideas is to create a Monopoly Board for USC. They would sell spaces to different organizations on campus in order to generate money for charity and raise funds for the club.
“We want to feel like we’re actually creating something and making something happen,” Dain said. “Hopefully we’ll get a product to sell and something of that nature to really get people that experience and the understanding of what it’s like to create something from nothing.”
The Entrepreneurship Club is looking towards general members, rather than just the executive board and administrators, to submit their own thoughts on this project and future endeavors.
Dain described the organization as a relaxed community that still focuses on and learns about a very important subject.
“Entrepreneurship is a super important concept. It’s something that people are rapidly realizing in today’s business world,” Dain said. “It’s a driving factor of innovation in successful businesses, just new thoughts and really generating and trying out and measuring the effects of trying things different ways.”
Students who are interested in joining can visit the club’s newly launched website at www.eclubsc.com.
Serving up service
If selecting a student organization is less about you and more about others, Student United Way may be the way to go. Student United Way is a community service organization affiliated with United Way of the Midlands that focuses on homelessness, health care, and education.
“We focus the most on homelessness just because it’s a pretty evident problem and it’s actually a hands-on problem that we can help make a difference, rather than health care and education that are a lot more difficult to get big groups involved in,” said Megan LaTorre, president of Student United Way and a third-year exercise science student.
One of the club’s main projects is volunteering at Transitions, a homeless shelter in downtown Columbia, at least once a month. Students help by serving food during lunch and dinner, and then cleaning up afterwards.
They also participate in Homelessness Awareness Week. During this week, they usually raise awareness about the issue through panels of people who have a lot to do with homelessness from the business aspect as well as a few homeless people.
Another event they are a part of is United Way Day of Action, which has a focus that vacillates between homelessness and education each year. In the past, they have volunteered at children’s homes for the event.
Every fall, Student United Way hosts an event called Mocktail in the Capstone Ballroom. They partner with the Young Leaders Society, which is composed of young professionals involved in nonprofit organizations. Anyone from the public can come to the event to enjoy sodas, appetizers and conversations with individuals involved in nonprofit work.
According to LaTorre, student members will benefit in many ways, but the most rewarding part is the wider effect.
“What we do benefits others, it benefits the community. It’s really rewarding to be a part of this organization. Everything we do is very gratifying and you can see it helping others on a first-hand basis,” LaTorre said. “We’re a fairly small organization, so everyone matters … you’re not getting swallowed up, you’re not just another member.”
Anyone interested in joining Student United Way should look for them at the service organization fair.
Sports and swords
Daniel Johnson, president of the Fencing Club, hopes that participants “learn a little about sport fencing and hopefully learn some kind of lessons that they can take on to life in general.”
“[Fencing Club] is a sport club at USC that is dedicated to promoting interest in fencing itself as an athletic event and also a discipline that you can take away to day-to-day life,” said Johnson, a fourth-year psychology student.
The Fencing Club is hoping for a record-breaking year. They’ve been in contact with the South Carolina Fencing Division Chair, Susan Hazel, about trying to raise USC’s fencing profile within the state and the southeast as whole.
In order to do this, they hope to host a fencing tournament at USC this spring. They have also been bringing experts to hold clinics at USC about recreating, running tournaments, maintaining equipment and more.
Johnson believes there are many reasons students might be interested in joining the Fencing Club.
“It’s a great ice breaker in conversation,” Johnson said. “You mention sword fighting suddenly everyone’s looking at you like ‘is this real?’”
The Fencing Club is registered as a sport club at USC, and Johnson believes it’s a great way for people to get in or stay in shape.
“Besides being really interesting to talk about when you get into it, it’s really a phenomenal workout,” Johnson said. “There’s really no better way to exercise than when someone’s chasing you around with a weapon in hand. It’s very cardio-oriented, but also builds a lot of core strength and leg strength as well.”
Johnson has also made many friends both on and off campus from being a part of the Fencing Club.
“The fencing community around here is actually very tight-knit. I’ve made friends from Southern Florida, just meeting them once, and we’ve maintained pretty good friendships over the years.”
Interested students can go to a Fencing Club practice, which take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Strom Thurmond Fitness and Wellness Center. The USC Fencing Club is geared toward attracting people who are new to fencing and then keeping them interested.