Student Groups at the U of MN

By Omar Abdelfatah

Personally, I stumbled upon ballroom by mistake. I am very glad that I found it though, or maybe it found me. It was during the University of Minnesota's Welcome Week, where the incoming freshmen get a bunch of tours around campus. During this week, we were exposed to a variety of student groups. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but I was definitely amused by the selection and amount of groups that existed. I saw a fencing club do a performance, and it made me want to sign up for them. Right as I walked towards them, my eyes caught a couple dancing rumba. I was so dazzled and mesmerized by what I saw, even though I didn't really understand what was going on. That's when I decided that this is what I would be spending my free time doing for the next few years of my life.

That was about a year ago; I am now the publicity officer for the University of Minnesota Ballroom Dance Club. I am trying to recruit students, freshmen or not, to join the club and experience the magic of ballroom. Earlier this September, there was an event where representatives from a lot of student groups were present, and the freshmen get to walk around and gather information. Of course, when I was at this event, I expected a lot of them to ignore me and walk away, which was the case. At first, I assumed that this was because of all the nagging they received from the other student groups. However, after changing my approach to them, I saw a different response. Once I started explicitly telling the passersby that they will be dancing with a bunch of other non-experienced dancers in our beginner lessons, I instantly got their attention. I believe that they were afraid of joining a group of people that already knew what they were doing, which explains why some students would rather do extracurricular that they have done in high school, than try something new. It is as if the freshmen were expecting that the clubs were created for a certain group of people, namely ones with experience. On the contrary, most clubs, especially U of MN Ballroom Dance Club, have a very generic target audience. Ours is anybody who wants to have fun!