GETTING INVOLVED

How to Navigate Joining a Club or other Organization

Do you sometimes feel that your whole day is spent going to class and returning to your dorm room? Would you like to meet a group of people with the same hobbies and interests as you? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, I have one word for you: clubs.

Extracurricular activities such as clubs are a great way to better your college experience. But with Embry-Riddle being home to so many different clubs - over 200 - how do you know which one you should join?

To decide, you should ask yourself: “What do I want to get out of the club”? If you wish to join a group of students who share the same hobbies as you, I recommend one of our many interest-based clubs, such as Anything Goes Anime, the Dancing Eagles, Model UN, and many more. In these clubs, you get to relax and spend time cultivating your hobbies with people who love to spend their free time the same way you do.

You may be interested in joining a more competitive club. Two possible options are the Historical European Martial Arts Club (HEMA), where members practice swordsmanship and compete against other schools, or the Paintball Club, where students hone and train their shooting skills to win various paintball tournaments.

You may prefer something that could boost your academic skills. If you are an engineer, there are many options, such as the Robotics Association at Embry-Riddle (RAER), Experimental Rocket Propulsion Lab (ERPL), and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). If you are a pilot, you could join the Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach

Eagles Flight Team (EFT). You can find a club that matches any of your interests here on campus, and if you can’t find one, you could easily start one yourself.

You may ask yourself, “If there are so many choices, how should I pick?” I recommend going on ERNIE and logging into CampusGroups. There, you can find descriptions, meeting times, and anything else you need to know for every club at Embry-Riddle.

But if you prefer a more human approach, I highly recommend the Activities Fair on Friday, Feb. 3. On that day, almost every club at Embry-Riddle will be hosting a booth, so if you stop by, you get to meet the clubs and the people who make them great in the first place.

Article by Salim Roig, Senior Reporter