What is a society?
During sixth form, when I was deciding on and applying to universities, a word I heard thrown around a lot was societies. If you’ve never heard of one, a society is basically a club for anything you can think of. Sport, music, arts and crafts, subject-related, you name it, it exists (and if it doesn’t, you can make it exist!).
Before I arrived in Durham, I remember excitedly scrolling through the Durham Student Union website looking at all the societies I could potentially join when I moved in.
It was DST for me
The one I was most excited to join was DST, Durham Student Theatre, and get involved with backstage tech. This wasn’t something I had ever done before, and I was really quite nervous before going to the first social – I very nearly didn’t go! But I put my nerves aside and walked down to the gorgeous Assembly Rooms Theatre, the home of DST, and got chatting to other freshers and more senior members; I quickly felt at home! Every single person was lovely and incredibly welcoming. I left this first meeting feeling SO excited about all of the opportunities I could dive right into – first up being the annual “Freshers’ Play”, which is Treasure Island this year, which I am stage manager for!
It’s so easy to talk yourself out of joining new societies and trying new things especially when you’re already out of your comfort zone in a new city. But some of my favourite times in Durham so far have been at DST events, and if I hadn’t gone to that first social, or the next one, or the one after that, I would’ve missed out on so much fun and so many new friends! One of my friends from college had never canoed before, but she wanted to give it a go here; she too nearly didn’t try, but she’s loved every minute of it and is now on the university canoeing team!
Try EVERYTHING
Starting university is all about new things; if I could only give people who come to Durham one piece of advice it would be to try, try, TRY everything you possibly can! Many societies offer a free taster session or two, and even after that memberships are relatively cheap – I think my most expensive was £12 for the year, and my cheapest was £2!! It’s very much okay to be scared or nervous for a first taster session – in fact very normal! But societies are one of the best things that university offers, especially here in Durham where we have such a range of them! It’s super easy to join them through the Student Union website or in person at the Freshers’ Fair.
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Durham Student Union Societies
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