Clique, clique, clique. Have you got what it takes to survive in a society at NTU?

Ocean devotion: every Wednesday pretty much every society at NTU arranges some form of bar crawl ending at ocean. You dress crazy and act like an idiot to get yourself noticed by other society members. Sounds like great fun, right?

What if you’re one of a small minority who can’t afford/doesn’t want to go to ocean and get wasted every week? How are you supposed to get yourself noticed then?

You’ll end up like I did sitting at the AGM of your society, feeling pretty confident that no one on the committee actually knows your name and wondering why you turned up in the first place.

Come closer, we bite frequently

How can you further yourself in a society where drinking gives recognition rather than actually trying hard at what you’re doing? Applying for a position on the committee and having people look at what you’ve written and go “are they even in this society, I’ve never really heard of them?”

The next one applies to many societies but not all of them I assume: cliques. This follows on from your necessary devotion to getting drunk as this is how you generally find yourself getting into the clique.

However many societies at Trent seem to exclude students who aren’t one of the chosen few close to the President, Vice President, or other committee members for no other reason than they’re not part of the clique.

Strictly Come Dancing had been hit very hard by the recession

Several students I know have made lots of effort and gone above and beyond, only for the society leader to turn round and say “sorry, who are you again?” This has left many people including myself questioning why we bothered in the first place and thinking that actually societies might not be for us.

Even activities you do that aren’t technically Trent societies can get you down for similar reasons. Taking time out of your day to write things that you hoped might go in a newspaper, magazine or online only to be told again you just didn’t make the cut, then seeing the same people occupying the pages week after week, month after month.

Drinking: enjoyment for some, endurance for others

So what can we do? Can we really try and change the attitude of some societies to include everyone rather than a chosen few?

Every year at society AGM’s candidates standing for committee positions will say they want to open up the society to everyone and every freshers fair new people are encouraged to sign up to societies, but what’s the point in lying every year just to look good when many people struggle to progress and may eventually give up. That’s not what a society should be like.

Or you could always do what I’m doing and look to start your own society that breaks these barriers, is open to everyone and has socials that go places other than ocean to get drunk.

So the question is, do you have what it takes to survive a society at Trent? Are you willing to do everything mentioned above just to get ahead? Or will you simply call people up on their actions and try and progress the good old fashioned way, through hard work.