So, I’ve done something I promised myself I wouldn’t do this year, and I’ve done it twice. I’ve become an officer of two student organizations. Before you say, “Oh, but that’s such a good thing to be a part of!” let me tell you that I agree. But I have something to explain.

In high school, I was Secretary for two organizations, a grant giving committee my sophomore year and my school’s chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) which I helped to start my junior year. Let me tell you, that it sucks to be the “responsible kid” and be voted Secretary which means you’re stuck taking lots of boring notes. This is even more of a pain when you don’t even take notes in your classes as it is, but people always assumed I was the “smart kid.” FALSE! I hated taking notes and I had been slacking off in my classes since middle school and was a solid A/B student. And I was the furthest person possibly interested in taking notes.

Whatever! Point is, I’m a decent person, and I did it anyways, and I did my job well. So well, that my senior year, both organizations had voted me President. With a busy senior year schedule of both high school and college classes, and meetings sometimes at the same time (not by my choice) I would often have to end up choosing which meeting was more important for me to attend. This meant a lot of pressure.

Long story short, my freshman year of college (a busy one by most standards) I promised myself I wouldn’t get too involved in student organizations so I would have more time to relax, de-stress, do homework, etc. Well, I joined Apples & Oranges, the university’s Mac user group and I became one of the regular members (cuz I’m an awesome dork like that) and they needed a Vice-President ASAP for some requirements, so BAM! I’m a VP. Which was okay because I honestly don’t do anything.

But, I made it worse by deciding one night where I was obviously light on homework, that my university of 20,000+ students really needed a Photography Club! You’d think that a university of this size that they would have a photography club already! I mean, there’s a Harry Potter Club and a Knitting Club but not Photography Club??? So I started one. Yes, me. Which means my freshman year, I’m running around from building to building, playing e-mail tag trying to reserve a classroom, messaging masses of potential members, trying to get this club up and running and make it interesting so members will want to come and stay.

Yes, student organizations are a great thing to be involved in, but I promised myself not to join too many. I went out and did worse than opposite of that and started a brand new organization which means 10x more responsibility than joining too many in order to preserve my sanity. So, why did I do this? 1- because I’m awesome, duh. 2- because I know that it will be so worth it later.