July 2016 ~ Micro Inquiry

Why you should get involved at UBC?

Make friends :) There are a lot of students, the easiest way to make friends is by getting involved where you all share at least one thing in common.
Gain "leadership" experience. As cliche as this sounds, university is the best time to learn new skills especially things outside of your degree. All it takes is signing up or stepping up to the plate. You'll be surprised how much you can pick up from activities like running committees, organizing social events, writing newspaper articles, or working with kids.
Try something new. Being a Science student doesn't mean you can't volunteer as a photographer for a newspaper, work as a stage manager for SLC (Student Leadership Conference), go on work trips with VOC (Varsity Outdoor Club) etc. There is nothing like good peer pressure to encourage you to try something you've always wanted to (skydiving, anyone?).

Establish your goal for getting involved. Is it to improve certain skills like public speaking, make friends, keep playing an instrument, try new things etc?
What level of involvement do you want? For example, being the president of AMS is basically a full-time job while being a photographer for a club is much lower commitment.
Where do you want to get involved? UBC has many different areas to get involved from student life, student politics, academic to community. I will attempt to list some from each area. Note: many of these areas overlap

Student Life:

Rez Life (become a floor rep, residence advisor etc)
Join AMS Clubs (from different hobby clubs, activist clubs to various culture clubs, there are tons of options to choose from) Shameless pitch for my old club: check out Shine On Music if you want to teach violin to elementary students.
UBC Rec (work at the Bird Coop, organize intramurals & events)

Student Politics:

Faculty constituencies/ student associations (ex. Science Undergraduate Society - SUS) There are multiple ways to get involved. From first year council, different committee positions to elected members (President, VP positions), there are tons of positions for interested students.
AMS Again there are elected positions for President & VP positions, but there are also lots of committee positions.
Senate/ Board of Governors These are elected positions only.

Academic:

Volunteer or Paid Research Positions Check out UBC Careers Online or URO for more details, UBC's work-learn program is nice way to get paid (and learn something)
Department Student Clubs While most positions tend to be elected, there are opportunities to get involved without going through the election process
Teaching Assistant/ Peer Tutor Typically senior undergraduate students have the opportunity to TA classes they previously did well in. This is extremely common for students in computer science or math.

Community:

Again some AMS Clubs focus on reaching out to the community
Volunteer teaching opportunities Lots of organizations need volunteers to teach & mentor elementary & high school students. Examples include Let's Talk Science, Science Fairs, and Aquarium.
Want a year-long volunteer opportunity? UBC's Centre for Community Engaged Learning organizes the Trek Program which is a 6-month commitment.
Want a short(er) volunteer opportunity? Check out UBC's Reading Week run by UBC's Centre for Community Engaged Learning.
Have an amazing idea to help your community? Apply for UBC grants here.

Events:

Either participate or help organize UBC events such as SLC (Student Leadership Conference) or MURC (Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference)
Volunteer as an orientation leader, Sci Team member