People make new friends at the activities fair?

My freshman year, I went in. Yes, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was hot. It was noisy. I had homework. I couldn't find anything I was interested in. So I left after a few minutes.

Yet I joined more clubs than most people would. I was an officer, editor of 3 clubs and/or on student senate for more consecutive semesters than I want to count up. How did I get involved with all that?

Simple. I told people my interests. Environmental clubs were easy to get involved in, since I was in Vasudha. I read stuff like The Poly and S&W, decided I was interested, and found out I had friends of friends involved in those clubs. For other clubs, a friend would invite me to come check them out. Some I liked. Some I didn't like.

And, in practice, this is what I saw a lot of. People would come to an event and say, hey, this is cool! I'm going to come to more stuff. Next thing you know, they're the president or whatever. At the Activities Fair, you get to see what clubs do. But you don't get to actually participate and see what it's like to be a part of that club.

Also: a lot of people are too busy first semester. I was. You want to adjust to college first, then add clubs. I think I tried out at least one new club every semester--some I stuck with, some I didn't. With the exception of a few clubs, you can join anytime you want. Reinstating the January/February activities fair would be very useful, although sadly it wasn't as well attended--but those who signed up for mailing lists then were far more likely to join the club and even become officers in my experience.