(Story Written on September 19th, 2022)
Have you ever wondered how unique your music taste is? Tonight, I'm attending the first meeting of the year for Dean’s Music Culture Club in the Campus Center. As a brief member last year, I’m excited to see everything that has changed and talk with my best friend and club leader, Joe Giacalone.
Tonight’s meeting is a traditional welcome meeting, but with a few twists. We all
introduce ourselves along with mentioning any concerts we saw over the summer or our
music preferences. I’m going to bring up that I saw Rage Against the Machine back in July.
Then we all go around and suggest an album from an artist we enjoy, choose a specific song of theirs, and play a segment of that song. After we finish that, we vote on three albums for us to listen to. We only have to listen to one, but listening to more is always more enjoyable as you get to hear music from a wide variety of genres.
Next week, we’ll take things slower and discuss the albums while playing music we enjoy, no specific album or artist. Welcome meetings are always a bit more hectic or activity-filled for all clubs than the average meeting.
As the meeting fully disperses, I decided to catch up with Joe and ask him a few questions about the Music Culture Club and the plans for this semester:
Q: “How do you feel about being able to bring back Music Culture Club for another year?”
A: “I’m feeling really positive this year. At the end of last year, we were really struggling with numbers, so to see everyone at the involvement fair made me excited to see the turnout for this year.”
Q: “Does the club have any events in the works?”
A: “We’re planning on an event called Smashing Pumpkins While Smashing Pumpkins, where we just plan on smashing pumpkins while having a cover band play Smashing Pumpkins.”
Q: “Have you faced any hardships while running the club? How did you overcome them?”
A: “We were struggling with member retention near the end of the semester as students seemed to view it as another class. We took a step back to re-evaluate how we set up the club in order to make it more engaging and welcoming.”
Dean has a multitude of clubs and organizations to help students break out of their shells and see everything that this campus has to offer. If things seem to feel overwhelming, then take a step back and be a part of what interests you most. It’s never too late to find something you enjoy around campus and if it proves to be more difficult than expected, gather some friends, and make what you enjoy a reality that can be shared with each one of us.