Recently we received an inquiry about how to establish a student organization. From what I can see, this Kouhai is unsure of two different parts: registering for a student organization in APU and how to gather people.
I figured this is a good opportunity for me to provide useful tips for current and future Kouhais. Hopefully, sharing my experience in founding APU Times from scratch can help you form your own circle and achieve your goals.
This essay has three main parts. The first part will provide information on applying for the student organization and finding the right people. The second part will discuss tips on how to form a sense of belonging. Lastly, the third part will discuss how these tips are applied in APU Times.
How to apply to the student office
Applying for a student organization is fairly simple and straightforward. You have to go to the following link, read it thoroughly, and fill out the form. Note that you need at least 5 people to start a student organization, and there is always an application deadline. The spring semester application ended already, and you can apply for the fall semester from October 11th. Please don't forget that even if you are not registered, you can still form a group. APU Times was unregistered for about 1 year.
However, the difficult part is not applying, but gathering the right people to join your club.
Gathering the right people
There are few possible ways.
1. Asking your friend
The easiest way is to ask your friends. If they are interested in what you want to achieve, they will be joining.
2. Reaching out to bigger audiences
The more people you talk to, the higher the chance of finding the right people. So, if you couldn't find people from your friend group, aim for a bigger audience.
For example, online, you can post on Facebook groups like Mini Share and APU Course Review. The problem with this is that looking for people to join your idea can be an irrelevant post for the group, and you might not be fully comfortable doing that.
For offline, what I did was talking to random people I met and presented my idea at the beginning of class after getting permission from professors. Chances to find the right people are higher when talking to a bigger group.
3. Other options
Recently, I heard about the usage of Clubhouse where you find a group of people via Clubhouse. If one can overcome the difficulty of continuously searching for a group or wait for people, I think it is a pretty good way. Unfortunately, this would also leave out all the android users and people who don’t use Clubhouse, but every method has its merits and demerits.
Unforeseen promotion
There is also one thing APU Times can offer. Write in our forum, and we will advertise your idea!
One of our goals is to solve this exact issue of having difficulty finding the right people to form a group. We want to solve this issue by facilitating our audience to the forum where you can discuss your idea and find people freely.
At the moment we have 3K followers on Facebook and a fast-growing Instagram account with over 500 followers. Once you make a post on our forum, we will reach out to you and build a promotion together. You will be able to potentially reach out to these nearly 3K followers. The efficiency is a lot higher than you making an effort yourself alone.
Don't just focus on reaching out
There is one thing you need to understand, though. The result of finding the right people depends on the quality of the idea/contents, which will determine the acceptance rate, and how many people you reached. To simplify:
Outcome = Quality of idea (acceptance rate) x Number of people reached
While we can help you with the number of reached people, the quality of the idea is on you!
In this article, I talked about some important points and information on registering for student organizations and some ways to gather people. In the next article, I will discuss tips on how to create a sense of belonging in your club. If you have any questions, comment below under the article or contact us on Facebook or Instagram.
John Kim, APM 4th year student, the founder of APU Times.
Having positive impacts on my surrounding is the lifetime goal.
Willing to share experiences and opinions to make APU a better place.
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