Top Benefits of Joining a Society at University

There's soon to be 1000’s of students arriving at their chosen university, ready to mix in their student accommodation, go on their first adventures in a new city and start their lectures.

After the initial move, you might be thinking ahead to the next stage of life at university - How to meet more like minded people? How to maximise your social life? How to make the most of your university experience? 

Why Societies will benefit your time at university: 

Societies are fun for many reasons. The secret is knowing exactly what you want from the society for yourself. 

Want to make your social circle bigger, or try new exciting things? Societies can do this for you. 

So let’s look at the five reasons to join, and which societies will benefit you:

Make new friends

At uni, you’ll encounter so many new people. You’ll meet them at your halls,  in lectures and seminars. You’ll even meet people in the street around campus. 

In fact there are so many ways to make new friends you might not wish for more. But societies are a great way to make friends who have similar interests.

So if you’re in a major city, in some great student accommodation,  societies are another way to help you meet your type of people. 

Kinds of society: While all societies help you meet new people, a few have a more social vibe. Music, sports, and film societies in particular lend themselves to this.

Develop a passion

Like us, you’re probably interested in a lot of different things. We might go from watching Bake Off on the TV, to having our own attempts (at varied levels of success). Or we might try something a bit arts and craftsy. 

Whatever your passion is, there are plenty of ways to explore it by checking out societies.

Kinds of society:life drawing, knitting, cooking, foreign language, music, or esoteric sports like fencing societies.

Get healthy

Is lugging your books around to lectures making you lose your breath? Need to exorcise that takeaway demon away? Or maybe you just feel like a health push? 

Listen up: why not join a sports society? Many health focused societies can encourage a good gym routine, or promote a healthy lifestyle.

Kinds of society: fitness, nutrition, yoga, meditation and mindfulness societies which can also help to manage stress.

Try new things

Ever gone down a zip wire, thrown volleyballs at a person, or tried to climb a cliff-face? University societies offer a chance to do all kinds of out of the ordinary things. So why not seize the opportunity and do something crazy. Find out the real benefits of joining a society at university and do something you’ve never done before.

Kinds of society: rock-climbing, dodgeball, Frisbee, boating or canoeing societies — pretty much anything which makes you say “I wonder what that’s like”.

Practical benefits

There’s a lot to be said about getting stuck into the organisation of societies: behind the scenes experience of putting on events, and making board decisions can all be gained here. 

There are also plenty of practical skills which you can gain by joining specific societies that look great on a CV - think problem-solving, events planning, organisational skills.  

Kinds of society: debating, journalism, and leadership societies. 

An old quote goes something like “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” But, we didn’t say that and neither did you! 

In fact, joining in can help us make new friends, learn more about our passions, get fit, get work experience, and find new stuff to try. So we can confidently say that we’d join the clubs that would have us as a member.

Great Societies, Great Accommodation

We hope you find a student society or club you love. After all, they can really make your time at university memorable. Almost as memorable as great accommodation, which you can talk with us about at any time.