At the annual Student Organizations Fair, Tech students networked with their peers and found academic engagement outside of the traditional classroom environment. Various clubs at the fair, some of which are featured below, offered opportunities for dynamic and hands-on learning.
Tech’s Student Government Association (SGA) and Center for Student Engagement fostered connections between like-minded and diverse individuals with their Student Organizations Fair. With over 550 clubs represented, all walks of student life lined Tech Green with booths, posters, representatives, treats, QR codes and sweat in the heat mid-day on Sept. 9.
From startups to sports, students showcased every newfound interest, compelling idea and beloved tradition on campus.
Despite an initial delay due to a heavy onslaught of rain from Hurricane Ida, SGA persevered to host an event offering students easy access to learning opportunities and authentic communities.
Students around the world have faced academic and professional challenges over the past year due to the pandemic. While administrators, professors and students cannot overstate the difficulties, a new club provides a fresh perspective and a kickstarter for innovation.
Notably, Healthcare Innovations, an organization chartered by Tech students within the past year, fuses technology and healthcare through workshops and seminars with guest speakers. Both graduate and undergraduate students at Tech can seize the opportunity to partake in the many networking and technical opportunities of this organization. More experienced graduate students lead many of the workshops and mentor younger students in their respective fields.
After an initial learning period at the beginning of each semester, students collaborate across fields of study to build creative solutions to healthcare problems. Employers gravitate to Tech students for their ability to jump into a working environment and adapt quickly. Healthcare Innovations teaches students how to collaborate across disciplines, develop their own ideas and struggle through the grueling production process.
Similarly, workers in every discipline rely on clear communication skills and structured argument to build successful products and careers. Tech’s Debate Team offers activities for members of all skill levels through practice sessions for public speaking, debate competitions and the campus discussion group. The Discourse Team deals with student life issues on campus from pandemic procedure to toxic productivity at Tech.
Students in the Debate Team branch out into the larger metro-Atlanta area by visiting high schools and debate clubs to teach, hone their argumentative skills and compete locally.
In the same vein, Great Conversations prompts students to ask difficult questions and compose structured hypotheses to questions.
The club combines the humanities and the sciences by hosting analytical discussions incorporating philosophy, science and psychology.
Notably, club leaders run a lecture series on the works of Dr. Jordan Peterson, an esteemed psychologist.
Dr. Peterson’s works serve as a launch pad for multidisciplinary connections, explanations and solutions to overarching philosophical questions and issues.
Furthermore, Great Conversations hosts a book club to study Dr. Peterson’s “Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.”
Students in Great Conversations look at the world through a variety of critical lenses and contextualize their education in terms of grander philosophical perspectives on the nature of life.
Tech’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) reaches widespread audiences through their religious, social, professional development and educational events.
MSA offers an inclusive environment to Tech students looking to build bonds and to network with other religious students.
Additionally, MSA welcomes Tech students with a desire to learn more about the religion and culture.
Within the first few weeks of school, MSA hosted a resume workshop, religious services, prayers and social events to foster community and belonging within the community and with the larger Tech campus.
SGA’s Student Organization Fair provided students with a glimpse at all the possibilities of campus life and a chance to get involved personally.
Half of Tech’s undergraduate student body will navigate college life on an almost fully open campus for the first time this semester.
SGA’s Student Organizations Fair allowed many Tech students to explore how they will choose to spend their time here in the heart of campus for what feels like the first real time.
To learn more about the hundreds of Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) student can join on campus, visit gatech.campuslabs.com/engage.