Northern Michigan University hosts many university activities throughout the year, whether it be broomball tournaments, the Hidden City Sleep Out, WinterFest or one of NMU’s sporting teams playing at home.
Even with all of these university activities, many students participate in little of them, sometimes none at all. NMU students need to awaken from their apathetic state and get involved in university activities before its too late, and they have already graduated from Northern.
University activities at NMU, like college activities at other campuses, have many benefits for students. These activities allow students to make friendships that could possibly last a lifetime. They create the opportunity for students to meet and talk to members of the university community, perhaps a professor or mentor, they otherwise never would have met.
Most importantly, university activities help make the NMU community come closer together. Without university activities, colleges simply become institutions full of individuals without a sense of community, except for attending classes at the same physical campus.
Many Northern students think they can’t participate in university activities because they lack the adequate time necessary to do so. This may be true in some cases. Between work, classes, studying and trying to have a normal social life, students feel like there is simply no extra time for other university activities.
For most students though, there is some time for extra university activities. Even if its just watching a Wildcat football game at the Dome or attending a guest speaker’s lecture in Jamrich 102, there is time for at least a couple university activities a year.
NMU students can also participate in university activities by joining a student organization. Most student organizations know that college students are busy and won’t be able to attend every meeting held throughout the academic year.
Don’t be afraid to go to an organization’s meeting to see what their group is about. The worst thing that could happen is you find out you don’t like the student organization, which in this case, simply brings you back to square one.
If the more than 280 student organizations at NMU don’t fit any of your interests, don’t give up. You can create your own, making friends and connections that way.
There seems to be a great divide between the students at Northern that are extremely active in university activities and those that are passively apathetic. Make sure you’re not one of the latter before graduating NMU.