Hello everyone! Welcome to UCL's YouTube channel. My name is Ellie-Jean; I am a second year student
of comparative literature at University College London and I'm also a YouTube content creator.
Thank you so much for joining my video today. We're going to be talking about societies
at UCL and why you should be a part of them. I'm involved in a few societies at UCL.
Last year I was just getting settled in so I didn't really participate in societies all too much
but with lockdown and obviously COVID-19 I felt a greater need to involve myself in the university
so I have participated in many societies. At the start of this year I joined the Hiking Society
which meant I got to go on an amazing trip to the Seven Sisters hills and it was such a good hike.
I was exhausted so that was a really good start for me but obviously once lockdown kicked in
that was no longer possible. Then I saw that Pi Media had a couple of responsibilities available
including Co-Editor-in-Chief of PiTV and considering my YouTube skills I thought it was
something that I could be good at so I applied and I'm having a lot of fun being Co-Editor
and we've made some incredible documentaries in my first couple of weeks all of which have
had amazing success which is so great to hear that I'm already making an impact in a society.
The third society that I'm involved in this year is UCL's Rare FM which I think is an
underappreciated society to be honest. It's UCL's radio show and every fortnight I have
a little show called 'Culture Craving' where I play songs from TV shows and films that
I really love. So those are the societies that I am involved in or have started to be involved in
in my second year and I think it's important to note that I only got involved in these societies
with the arrival of lockdown and COVID- 19 and that's when I felt this great need
to connect to UCL as a society and a community. Why should you get involved in societies?
I've discovered through getting involved in these societies they can be helpful for many reasons.
The first one I want to talk to you about is meeting people. I've met an enormous number of people and
feel like I'm a part of a group, something that is actually sometimes quite difficult at UCL
as London can be quite isolating. It can feel quite difficult to get involved, so it's been so
nice to have conversations with new people from my year, from years above, people who are doing
their masters and beyond and it's just a good way to get a feel of the student community
and actually feel like you're participating in that so that's been really really nice. I would say
being a leader within one of my societies as well has also given me a
greater opportunity to meet people because people come and they ask me questions and then I can ask
them questions and you slowly get a little bit of a rapport which is really nice. The next one I
think has made an enormous impact for me this year and that is having something to bulk up your CV
getting some experience. All of the societies I've been involved in have supported me in my
career pursuits in some way. Like I said PiTV has given me a leadership role which has been
so exciting but it's also given me a chance to edit other people's videos other than my
own, so I've gained much broader skill. There's also opportunities for training in various
societies including in my role there's talk of training for certain things and then with Rare
FM I get the opportunity to host a radio show. At the moment we're only using equipment that
we can use at home, but when things open up again I'll be able to actually use the studio which is
going to be amazing. It's just like running a radio show in real life, it's a good chance to practice
different careers you may be interested in. My societies that I'm involved in are very creative
because I'm a very creative person and those are things I'm interested in but whatever it is that
interests you career-wise there will be a society for it. I'm also looking very much into sustainability
societies as that's an industry which really interests me but there's also finance societies
and basically one for whatever industry appeals to you so you're very likely to get support
from your societies in gaining experience. Starting new hobbies! I feel like this one
is fairly obvious but getting involved in societies means you have something to do in your
free time. Free time both, in lockdown, feels like there's lots of it and also scarce and sometimes
our free time is spent on Netflix on your own and you can just allow the hours to pass you by.
Whilst this is important in COVID times don't put any pressure on yourself at all.
It's also really good to provide yourself with something to do which gives gives your life a
little bit of meaning again, and a society can be a nice relaxed way to do that. So the radio show has
made me realize how much I actually enjoy talking - not just filming - but talking and it's inspired
me that I might want to start a podcast and I've realised my love of
music through that. And I've had to watch more TV shows and films to find music to pull from.
So it's been a really great opportunity for me to give me something to do in my spare time and
make me feel valuable again. It's very important to feel like you're part of the community at UCL.
It can be quite isolating in lockdown. It can be hard to contact your friends, it can be hard to
feel like you're a part of something, so joining a society is a really great way to do that and I
highly recommend it. If you want to ask me any more questions my Instagram is @elliejean28
but you can also leave a comment in this video for UCL. Thank you so much for watching.
See you! Goodbye!