In this clip, students provide an overview of some of the opportunities to get involved in the 150 clubs and societies at the University of Birmingham.
Title: Clubs and Societies
Duration: 3.13 mins
Speaker Names (if given):
S1 Lizzie Ralph, Vice President (Student Activities and Development)
S1 We’re really lucky at the Guild at the University of Birmingham because we have over 160 student groups and 26 volunteering projects. There’s a vast range of things you can get involved with from CircusSoc to battle re-enactments – from African drumming. There's just – I hope there’s something for everyone. You can learn skills in those societies or you can learn campaigning activities. The development opportunities are amazing but we hope that all the skills that they learn are transferable. In the volunteering projects particularly they don’t just learn about – give their time to volunteers and those projects – they also have to fundraise for them and manage those projects.
S2 There’s a whole range of different societies you can get involved in. As niche as you may think some of them are, there is something to cater for everybody’s tastes and, I mean, the societies do a really good job of doing that as well. I mean, I’ve been involved in the jazz and blues society, also the Afro–Caribbean society as well, which is kind of like a society that’s organised to promote African and Caribbean culture and for anyone basically that’s interested in it; it’s not just for African and Caribbean people at all. And across the year they run events. You have the base and meetings every fortnight as well. Last year there was an event to commemorate the 200th year since slavery had been abolished and a number of people came to that and it was very successful and it just helped to kind of promote the kind of African and Caribbean culture within the University.
S3 I think universities aren’t necessarily just about learning your subject, they’re also about developing as a person and all the voluntary opportunities that you can get engaged with, you know, at the Guild, whether that’s joining societies, you know, getting involved in the campus politics or really, you know, making the most out of the sporting opportunities at Birmingham; it’s really important to make sure that you come out after spending your fees on getting a good education and, you know, a well-rounded CV.
S4 Being a member of clubs and societies and stuff means you get to meet people from your course and people from different sports teams. There are loads of clubs and societies to join. I joined the swimming team here, which I find really fun. We have loads of socials: we had a Halloween Party last night, which was great. I dressed up as a fairy.
S5 There's a wide range of clubs and societies on offer, especially sport teams but at the beginning of the year there’s a big fair, so you can choose whatever ones that you want to be in. I joined the athletics team; we train five or six times a week and the coaching’s really good. We’ve actually got the national endurance coach who comes to coach our group three times a week and this Easter they’re also taking us on a three week trip to America to tour the different universities.
S6 I’ve been involved in quite a few clubs and activities and societies since joining the University, in particular some of the drama societies. I recently had the chance to be in a project called ‘48 Hour Plays’ where you basically put on a play in one weekend, so you have ten days to learn your lines and then two days to rehearse it before you actually put it on on the Sunday evening and it was absolutely amazing because it was so intense and so much fun and you make a whole new group of friends really quickly.
END OF RECORDING