By Daniel, UWE Bristol student.
Before I attended UWE Bristol, I had no confidence, and my mental health was in the pits. Back in 2021, I was about to start my second attempt at university. I felt ready to fail like I’d done previously in education. The last thing on my mind was societies and extracurricular activities.
The fear of leaving my comfort zone when exploring new hobbies came from not knowing anything about them. I worried I’d be no good, that I’d waste people’s time, and utterly embarrass myself.
My Fresher’s Fair experience
When I first joined the University, I attended the Fresher’s Fair held at the Students’ Union. Open to students of all years, it’s a large indoor and outdoor event with stalls representing different societies and sports. This gives you the opportunity to find out about the different activities they run.
Outside of my P.E. lessons at school, I’d never voluntarily done sports and the idea of joining a sports club at university was an alien concept for me. But the positivity and enthusiasm of the people running these clubs infected me and fuelled me with the mindset of “if not now, when?”
“Having this face-to-face contact with the societies showed me how inclusive and welcoming they were of newcomers.”
Trying new activities
Following my obsession at the time with The Hunger Games, I signed up to UWE Bristol’s Climbing Club. I also joined their Kickboxing and Muay Thai teams – two activities I’d never tried before and had previously been too intimidated to even think about.
From day one, I loved it. I was better than I thought, and I could see there were many other newcomers in the same boat as me. The physical activity combined with trying something new gave me an unimaginable boost in self-esteem.
This made me want to explore more about myself and see what other passions I might have been secretly harbouring. This resulted in me joining the Vegan and Drama societies. I never thought I’d join Drama, with my stutter and general clumsiness, but I’m glad I did.
How my societies have helped me
The key mindset I had when embracing these new activities was that if I made an absolute fool out of myself, at least I’d know I’d tried. And believe me, this happened on more than one hilarious occasion.
So many of my past anxieties had made me skip opportunities, minor and major. I’ve learned I’d rather regret doing something than regret not trying at all and letting the chance slip by.
Before coming to UWE Bristol, I worried a lot about making friends as it’s something I’d struggled with previously when I didn’t venture out of my comfort zone. Being queer and neurodiverse, I felt I would never find a crowd to fit in with.
Through joining a variety of societies, I wound up making a good number of close friends in these groups, who are just as weird as myself. Even after starting new clubs and dropping others in my third year, I still see these friends every week, usually outside of university activities.
“The best part of joining societies is I’m now engaged in multiple different friend circles and have a far more diverse set of experiences than before.”
My advice on joining societies
I understand you may be nervous about joining societies and making friends, especially if you’ve had similar experiences to me before I started university. I want to encourage you to explore for yourself and look for opportunities to try new things when you visit the university.
Whether you first visit campus on an Open Day or wait until starting university to explore like I did, I guarantee there’s something here for you.
Find out more about sports, societies and activities at UWE Bristol.