These students tapped into new communities through student orgs

This week’s Student Organization Fair gives students the chance to visit tables to learn about hundreds of registered student organizations on campus, from engineering to business to yoga.

It will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Kohl Center.

Meet three students who made new friends and took up new activities when they joined student orgs.

Reaching out over the ocean

Valerie Rehn, a third-year civil engineering student, joined three engineering-focused student organizations: Engineers Without Borders, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers. 

This fall she plans to peruse the tables at the Student Organization Fair to find a nature or mindfulness-related student organization to use as a healthy outlet to stay balanced this school year, something she recommends to everyone. 

Rehn is the publicity coordinator for Engineers Without Borders, a non-profit student organization that works with disadvantaged communities to implement sustainable solutions for community problems. She joined in the spring semester of 2023 after settling in at UW–Madison, and became involved in the Uganda project. Rehn then traveled to Uganda in May of 2023 for one week to meet with the contractor, go over the design of the school they were helping to build and discuss with the children in that town what they wanted from their education.

“I traveled with a team of people with different degrees at all different levels and learned a lot about how an engineering team works and the good it can bring to the world.”

Rehn and the rest of the Uganda team not only found a sense of community in the student organization when working together but also learned from the community they supported when designing and constructing the school.

Making vehicles — and bird houses

One student who is in two vastly different student organizations is Adrian Asani, a third-year mechanical engineering student. Asani participates in the Audubon Society and the SAE Baja Team. 

The SAE Baja Team designs and builds a new prototype single-seat off-road vehicle each year, providing hands-on learning about engineering design.

The Audubon Society, in contrast, is for people who are interested in learning more about the study of birds. Asani, who is the secretary, explains it’s popular with people who are interested in nature in general. He joined the fall semester of his second year at UW–Madison, and it’s become an outlet for him to get outside and take a break from the stresses of college life. 

The Audubon Society creates project opportunities for members and even partners with people in the ornithology department. It organizes bird-watching hikes in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, and members make tree swallow nest boxes for the preserve.

Asani says his favorite part of being in Audubon Society is the aspect of community building. “It’s not just focused on looking at birds. It’s people who want to take advantage of the fact that we have such a nice nature preserve on campus. It’s nice to take a break, enjoy nature and build a community of like-minded people.”

Connecting with communicators

Sydney Claflin is a fourth-year journalism student who is currently the president of the Association for Women in Communications, which focuses on uplifting and supporting female or female-identifying students in similar fields. Claflin joined AWC during the fall semester of her first year at UW–Madison, hoping it would help her narrow down her options in terms of what area in communications she would like to pursue. 

Claflin says that the communications field is a very diverse field, which can be overwhelming when trying to navigate exactly what route you want to take in the field. To help, AWC brings in women in the communications field from diverse backgrounds to speak to members, give them an idea of how they got there and make it all feel a little less intimidating.

Claflin has taken on many different roles in AWC, all allowing her to learn more about the student organization and communications field to help new members feel more at ease when starting a communications program at UW–Madison. 

“My favorite part is being able to help the younger college students navigate college and their future careers and hopefully make them feel less nervous,” she said. 

Claflin also was able to build a community within AWC. 

“The other part I love is being surrounded by women who help me and have become my really good friends,” she said. “I think that’s really important, especially when going on networking trips to be with people you do truly like.”