Campus involvement: Get it while it’s fresh.

Think back to the memories from freshman year. The good ones, the bad ones and the ones I can only laugh about now — everything was so new and exciting. New faces and friends, trepidation over the unfamiliar academic requirements. I also remember standing on the vast shore of extracurricular options at USC and wondering where to go first.

Julia Vann | Daily Trojan

The summer before freshman year, I was bombarded with e-mails and literature telling me to get involved. It was perplexing to see all these letters take on an almost Harry Potter-esque manner of flying through my mailbox, blanketing my desk with all shades of cardinal and gold. “Get involved,” they cried at me. In what? As an incoming freshman with uninformed expectations of what happens at college, my definition of being involved definitely didn’t seem like something the administration would advocate.

Discovering the true collegiate definition of “getting involved” set my head spinning with all the pressure and possibility packed into the phrase as well as the overstuffed packets USC kept sending to my front door. Promotions for clubs such as the Trojan Knights, Surf Club and all sorts of singing and improve organizations came in constant streams. I, being the conscientious overachiever that I was, felt overwhelmed by the daunting new task of sorting through all the pamphlets and deciding which clubs and organizations to join.

Turns out there are even more organizations than the ones advertised. “USC has almost 700 recognized student organizations,” boasts SCampus, the student guidebook. For whatever interest you might have, there’s an organization for that. If you’re into the whole leadership thing, try Building Government. Want to get more acquainted with a higher power? There are plenty of religious groups. If you want to kick that two-left-feet habit you’ve been sporting since middle school, try salsa dancing.

Now, for some students, involvement translates into résumé-building. I know I have sometimes fallen captive to this mindset, raising my hand compulsively when a professor asks for team leaders or club starters, or, better yet, systematically working my way through the involvement fair collecting fliers from every booth — anything to bolster the nebulous and ever-daunting prospect of my future career.

But while a good amount of résumé-building can help quell your fear of the future, a more palpable and potentially less self-serving purpose of involvement is community service. I know a select few people who are truly passionate about community service in one form or another, but the majority of people with whom I’ve discussed the subject take the posture of apologetic undercommitment — we’re very much supportive of the idea, but very regretful that we haven’t yet found a means or time to do much community service.

But here again, there’s a solution for that — student organizations can provide the answer. Some organizations that exist for other purposes, notably the Emerging Leaders Program, often coordinate community service events for students in exactly the quandary mentioned above.

In an effort to practice what I preach, I’m going to pick one of the community service options and let you know how it works out during the semester. You should, too.

However we choose to plug-in — as an upperclassman wanting to try something new or as an incoming freshman just figuring out where to fit in — involvement at USC can be a fun and often easy way to do some great things while you’re still on campus. And it’s yet another reason to get excited about being a Trojan.

Reid Roman is a sophomore majoring in industrial and systems engineering. His column, “Bright Side,” runs  ever other Friday.