Joining a society is a great way of meeting people that have the same interests as you. There are over 100 different societies at Loughborough, so you can really choose anything from cultural societies to sports or performance societies. Societies organise different activities, events and socials, such as meet and greets, movie nights, pub crawls, talks, trips, sporting activities and other fun things! I would definitely suggest going to the Freshers Bazaar, which is held every year during the fresher’s week, where each society has their own stall and you can talk to them about what they do and also sign up. Cultural societies are great to meet new people from your region or people with a different culture. There are many cultural societies from all over the world!

I have been learning German for quite a while and I wanted to join at least one society, so I thought that the German language society might be a good idea. I am so happy that I joined, because I met so many new people already at the first meet and greet social, Oktoberfest, which took place in Fenways, a burger restaurant in town, at the beginning of the year. Oktoberfest is a really popular event in Germany, so we were eating pretzels and had a fun quiz about the event as a part of the celebration. It was a really good night with people either interested in German or generally interested in other cultures.

Since the second semester started, I also have been to a few Japanese society socials. You might be thinking why would a girl from Slovakia go to the Japanese society. Well, I have a very good friend here at Loughborough that is from Japan and she invited me to their sushi party. I had never had real sushi in my life before, so I thought, why not, I might just go and try. The sushi was great and I met so many nice people! I decided to join their next social, which was a pub crawl and I also went to the movie night, which I really enjoyed!

Being a part of the society, where you can learn something new and meet like-minded people is a great experience. I would recommend everyone to join at least one society. Some of the societies meet once in a month, others meet once in a week, so there is really something suited for everyone. You can even become a committee member and organize the events, socials and be in charge of the society. Another great thing you can do, if you don’t find any of the societies interesting or you have a new idea, is to set up a new society! It’s not that difficult, my friends and I actually decided to set up a new society, Slavic society, not only for people from Slavic countries, but for anyone interested in getting to know our culture and have fun while meeting new people!

Loughborough is a university with so many activities and opportunities. It was even ranked as the university with the best student experience in the UK! When I was working at the open days and telephone campaigns as a Student Ambassador in the last few weeks, a lot of prospective students asked me, if it’s easy to make friends here. My answer was yes. You just have to get involved! And there are so many different ways of how to get involved and joining a society is one of them.