With over 80 clubs available at Lobsterfest this year, Juniata offers all kinds of chances to get involved. Unfortunately, many students cannot participate in all of the clubs that they sign up for, and eventually they have to decide which clubs to commit to. As the new year begins, students share their experiences:

Sarah Bennett ’15, Warminster, Pa.:
I sign up for clubs that seem interesting to me, not that I’m necessarily like, ‘Hey, I have to go right now!’ There are some clubs that I’m like, ‘Yes! Right now!’ That’s probably because I’ve been in them for a while. And just because I don’t go to the meetings, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care. There are a couple things, like women’s rights and animal rights and all that, I am straight up way for it, but I just don’t have time or don’t have energy to go to the meetings.

Michelle Merola ’14, Massapequa, N.Y.:
I am known as a person who does absolutely everything, everywhere on campus. It’s kind of an issue. I think I’m a relatively active member of about eight or nine different clubs or organizations on campus. I’m an officer in two of them. So, after last year’s Lobsterfest I banned myself from joining any new clubs, which was probably a pretty good idea. But I just really like to be involved, so my existence is pretty much always running around on campus because I do too many things.

Dan Piper ’13, Buxton, Maine.:
In more recent years, I have toned down the number that I have signed up for. Apart from the Ministry of Games, I don’t really go to most meetings. I sign up for them because I know that they need money, and the only way that they really get money is by having people sign up for them. Just because I don’t have the time or the energy to go to the clubs doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have the funding to supply people with that opportunity.

Lara Schaffer ’14, Goshen, N.Y.:
I signed up for everything that I found interesting freshman year at Lobsterfest, and I think I’ve only actually been to one. I go to that one regularly unless theatre gets in the way, which it does a lot. I would go. I get emails from clubs that I ignore, and I guess I still kind of feel like part of them, although a minor part.

Chris Ingersoll ’14, West Chester, Pa.:
I’ve actually stopped signing up for clubs, because it always turns out that the ones I’m interested in always have the worst times that they meet. Like midnight to one, or six in the morning on a Saturday. It’s just terrible.
~Laura Bitely ’14, Juniata Online Journalist