It is a well known fact that cereal is a classic late-night snack, especially for college students. But it is a lesser known that there’s a Cereal Club on Tech’s campus.Boasting 200+ members and pulling from at least eight different residence halls, Cereal Club meets at the end of each week to relax and eat cereal.
The club was co-founded by Youssef Asaad and Octavian Han. On the first week of school, they found themselves enjoying a bowl of cereal at 11:12 p.m.
“We began to do this daily and started to gain interest from other students, and after accumulating about 10 members we decided to start a club that would first meet twice a week where we would provide the cereal, milk, bowls and spoons for anyone who would like to join our evening snack,” Asaad, first-year ME, explained. “Once we started providing the necessary supplies, the club grew exponentially and we began to post on social media and use flyers to spread the word.”
Cereal Club originally got their funding through Smith’s Hall Council, but they have partnered with General Mills to provide cereal for at least one meeting in the near future.
Bryce Watson, a third-year CS major and Smith PL, didn’t foresee the massive support that the club has garnered. He created the original meme that got passed around and made it all the way to West Campus.
“I have to admit, when I saw five guys eating cereal at midnight I didn’t think it would become this. I think I underestimated them.” Watson added. “All of the starting crew were residents on my hall that Jorge Perdomo (one of my co-PLs) and I decided to back just to see how far they could go. As it turns out, much further than I think anyone expected.”
This club may focus on cereal, but the founders had additional motives. Particularly, they wanted to create a safe space for freshmen.
“Myself being an incoming freshman, I found very few opportunities outside of FASET to meet freshman from other dorms during the week. Cereal Club offers an opportunity to do just that.”
Gurjote Singh Sethi, a first-year IE, joined, as one would expect, because he loves cereal.
“I stayed because of the great atmosphere. It is a great way to de-stress on Thursday nights, and I have met a lot of good friends there while enjoying a nice bowl of cereal,” Sethi said.
Currently, meetings are held in the second floor Smith lounge. Initially, the club was made up of about 15 people but that number shot up to 85 in about a week.
Moving forward, Asaad and Han have plans to make the
organization officially a Georgia Tech club.
To get involved, Assad says to “simply come to an event on Thursday night and get added
to a GroupMe, in which we update all members with the progress of the club as well as future meeting times.”
They plan to expand to the GT Connector in the future if membership continues to increase.