Hixson Peer Mentors Blog Post-So You're Here Now...Now What?

Congratulations! You’ve officially made it (mostly) through your first week of college. You’ve survived Orientation, Destination Iowa State, your first Hixson lecture with Debra (scary, I know), your first recitation with us amazing Peer Mentors, and soon your first week of classes. So now you may be thinking “What else is there to do in college besides this whole class thing?”.

Luckily for you, there are lots of other things to do here besides just going to class and studying. We have over 800+ clubs and organizations here. We have clubs for majors (Biology Club, Psychology Club, Criminal Justice Club), pre-professional clubs (Pre-Health, Pre-Vet, Pre-Optometry, etc.), and clubs just for fun (Medieval Fighting Society, Jugging and Unicycling Club). You can find information about all of the clubs offered on campus on the Student Organization Database, which can be found at this link: http://sodb.stuorg.iastate.edu/

Many of you live in the residence halls and/or the Greek Community. These are both great ways to get involved as well! Run to become your house president, vice-president, intramural chair, whatever you want! You may even be able to run for a hall council position, and get to represent your entire residence hall on IRHA (Inter-Residence Hall Association), our residence-hall wide governing body that plans activities and provides updates to all of the residence halls. I started out as secretary of my floor my freshmen year, became Vice-President of my residence hall my sophomore year, and even got the opportunity to go to some regional leadership conferences and present information about Iowa State, so it’s definitely a great way to get started out on campus.

Not interested in residence hall or Greek government, but still want to be involved on campus? No problem! Join a VEISHEA committee, become involved with Homecoming, sign-up to raise money for Dance Marathon, our largest student-ran philanthropy on campus, whatever you choose! No matter what you’re interested in, you’ll be able to find it here at Iowa State!

Any questions on how to get involved on campus? Please feel free to contact me at ahenshaw@iastate.edu, or ask any of the other Peer Mentors. We’ll be ecstatic to help you! Congratulations on surviving your first week!

-Austin