Almost every university has clubs and welcomes students to be part of it. Clubs help them to gain knowledge, skills and experience in leadership, communication, problem- solving, group development, management and what not. Focusing these, 'Youth Echo Episode-2' by the Financial Express arranged a live session on 'University Clubs: Roles and expectations,' on January 24, 2021, on the official Facebook platform of the FE. Youth Echo is a platform of open discussion on economics and business trends, social issues and career development. Echo also focuses on youth engagement and aims to be the voice of youths.
In this episode, discussion took place regarding the expectations of club freshers and how the executives plan to fulfill them effectively. The episode was hosted by the writer (Zubayer Wasit). The invited guests were Shafin Ahmed, president of BUP Business and Communication Club, Md Shadman Shiam, president of BUP Career Club, Raisa Rahman, general secretary of BUP Global Affairs Council and Md Nafis Khan, general secretary of BUP Economics Club.
The session started with club freshers expressing their views and motive behind joining clubs at university level. Maruf Billah, currently a second year student of BUP said, "Clubs can help me settle in, make new friends, and grow my network. For the introverts, finding a group of friends in college can be difficult. Club is especially beneficial for incoming freshmen looking to establish a friend group." Lamisa Sadaf, on the other hand, believes clubs are the place to master diverse skills, for instance, communication skills while communicating with club officials, seniors, faculties and others. "Through executing different tasks, your communication skill develops a lot. And the same thing happened to me."
The executives board members of clubs then talked about club roles and activities. Md Shadman Shiam said, "When I came to BUP, I got the opportunity to work for two clubs. In spite of the hectic academic pressure that I had to undergo during my undergrad years, BUP Career Club gave me a reason to love it." Other executive members also shared their exciting memories regarding club activities. Shafin Ahmed reminisced about his hosting an event on a boat. "During last year's CreADive, I had to host an online session on a boat. For a few personal reasons, I was outside of Dhaka. So, I hosted the whole session right away in the middle of a swamp." These are the types of memories that a university club can produce, which will forever be imprinted in one's mind.
An interesting game was designed for club freshers named 'Solve the Crisis,' to make the event more engaging. Different club crises and unexpected situations were given instantly, and they had to come up with unique solutions. One such scenario was like this: In an event, one of the judges called a few minutes ago saying he cannot arrive at the venue on time. What should one do to handle the situation? In its reply Jawad Hossain Komol, a third year student from BBA, solved the situation with his wit and said, "The fastest solution to this issue is to assign a faculty as a judge since our faculties are from different backgrounds and they have vast extracurricular activities' experience. We can also assign one of our alumni as the judge."
The writer is currently studying Economics at Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP). He can be reached at zubayerwasit.bup@gmail.com