“Get involved;” next to “you’re late,” those are arguably the two most common words for a student to hear on a college campus. We spend much of our high school career being told to get involved in order to spice up our college applications and then, once in college, we’re further told to get involved to spice up our job résumé.
We believe most students by their second year or so, can finally understand the vast importance of getting involved. But is getting involved in your own department enough? After all, we’re all Monmouth students, regardless of major.
The Communication Department offers seven different platforms for students to get involved with. All of these organizations are student-run and give students an opportunity to get hands on experience in their field before stepping foot into the dreaded ‘real world.’
Of course, the Communication Department isn’t the only department which offers hands on experience. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a major that doesn’t have a coinciding club, organization or extra-curricular aspect to get involved with.
Here at The Outlook, we acknowledge all the hard work our fellow students put into their fields and the passion shown for respective clubs and organizations. Bringing the news to this campus each week has pushed most of us to step outside of this sanctuary we call Plangere and take a look at what other departments are doing.
Unfortunately, it often seems no matter how much work an organization puts into an event, it is rare to see students outside of that organizations respective department attend the event.
For example, last week Hawk Television, along with WMCX, hosted an event in Plangere called “Rock n Raise.” It took place on a Friday afternoon and featured food, games and live bands. Over six months of planning went into the event, of which the sole purpose was to raise money for Relay for Life. While the turnout was good, it was rare to see many students outside of the Communication Department stop by and in our opinion, it’s a real shame.
Many of us at The Outlook feel that getting more involved outside of your own department is a good thing. Not only will you be supporting fellow Hawks but you’ll be broadening your own horizon and may develop an interest in a subject you never would have given a thought to before.
On our staff, we have editors who come from all different types of majors in other departments. Our politics editor is a political science major, both of our entertainment editors are English majors and we even have a feature writer who is a biology major. We would like to see all students dip their experiences into other fields outside of their major.
It is also theorized that many students don’t attend events outside their department because they simply did not hear about them. If students were more aware of what was going on in buildings other than their own they may be more likely to venture across campus and check out the events.
In addition to merely attending events outside your major, it’s also encouraged to actually get involved with interests outside your major. One English major at The Outlook mentioned how it’s almost expected that English majors get involved with the Monmouth Review. While that certainly is great, it’d look even better to see variety, perhaps in radio or television. This shows that you are diverse and open to thinking outside the box and may just set you apart from being “just another résumé in the pile.”
Involvement in events is a great way to see some new faces and develop an understanding for a subject without setting foot in the classroom. Most of us are here for four years, maybe five; so why not take advantage of such a diverse community and large pool of knowledge?