By Grace Lawson
Amid bustling booths and crowded corridors, Long Beach State students who crossed the Central Quad this past week may have had Surf Club flyers thrust upon them or found themselves pulled into a conversation about an interest they never knew they had.
While the intense heatwave tried its best to act as a deterrent, it was not enough to stop students from touring the plethora of clubs, departments and student-run organization options showcased during the official Week of Welcome event on Sept. 4 and 5.
The quad had its walkways uncommonly crowded throughout the two-day event, leading to single-file lines of students walking side by side in groups of more than two.
Students both meek and eager gathered around booths to hear members give their best pitches for their organizations.
Finding a place to fit on campus during Week of Welcome is not an insurmountable feat, as dozens of clubs and organizations were in attendance in hopes of attracting new and interested students.
“We’re just about building a community and sharing our perspective as a woman in the film industry,” Daphne Longenbach, a second-year communications major, said.
Longenbach was tabling for the Women in Film Club.
“We do some activity-based club meetings where we just have crafts and stuff, to get to know each other and build connections within the major, and also have more opportunities to get to learn things you may not get to learn in class,” she said.
What Week of Welcome has to offer goes beyond expanding a resume or furthering one’s academic status. Like many other clubs, Long Beach Lunabotics encourages peer connections that foster community and common interests.
“Here at Long Beach Lunabotics, we compete in a NASA competition to help them with the development of rovers for lunar and martian exploration,” aeronautical engineering major and engineering physicist Caleb Carr said.
As Carr is completing his last year at CSULB, he said the goal for Lunabotics is to give students a space of belonging and support for career development.
“Our motivation is to provide an area for freshmen, but also anyone in their academic career to come and gain skills, gain network, we do a lot of outreach events,” he said.
At other booths, surfboards and snowboards leaned against easy-up poles, the sound of music blasted throughout the Associated Students Inc. sections, mannequins styled with clothing stood next to the Students in Fashion Club and the Comparative World Literature Club’s table was nearly invisible under the stacks of books displayed on it.
Returning club members walked between crowds, serving as sirens to get students to stop by their tables.
Among them was Leslie Banos, the President of the Child Development Club and a third-year student majoring in child development and family Studies.
The event helped Banos extend the presence of her club on campus, as she said she had the chance to meet a lot of people from different majors.
“It’s such a big campus, so all the interactions we’ve been having are super nice,” Banos said. “A lot of people are really curious because this club hasn’t really been active in about two years, so a lot of people are like, ‘Oh tell me about it.’”
Most of the Greek row, consisting of sorority and fraternity booths, tackled the event without tables, instead leaning into their laid-back reputations and talking to interested students as they passed through the crowd.
Although an outdated tradition to some, the CSULB Week of Welcome offers Long Beach students a variety of ways they can get involved within their major, clubs of interest or sorority and fraternity life.
