My college experience is far from a typical one. I’m not in a frat, I’m not in one of the most common majors, and I’m not the biggest party animal. My favorite hobbies are watching YouTube videos, playing video games, and I work out often in addition to working at a gym. Instead of joining a poetry or a foreign language club, I’m an active member in Nintendo Club, a video game club at UC Davis.
The club not only gathers fans of Nintendo video games together to play games such as Super Smash Bros., but it creates a community and it is an environment for people of all levels of video game experience to have fun and makes friends. There are other similar clubs such as the Project M Club, Davis Anime Club (Video Game division), and the League of Legends club, which appeals to slightly different types of gamers. Here are the top 10 reasons why you should scrape together spare time to participate in a video game club at your school.
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10. You are going to procrastinate anyway, so do it in a safe and social environment.
No matter how dedicated of a student you are, at some point food, social media, or Netflix will beckon you with an offer you can’t refuse. If you’re playing video games with other people, your focus will not go to waste. Additionally, it’s a good opportunity to spend time with some friends and you don’t even have to make plans. The plans have already been made for you.
9. Meet people with a similar interest.
The absolute quickest way to meet people who you have something major in common with it to join a club. Yeah, that’s cool if you guys were both from the same county, but it takes a little more than that to make a connection. Having the same favorite video game or character as someone else opens the door for you guys to bond and becomes friends.
8. It’s an easy way to try new video games without buying them.
Have you ever bought a $60 game, hated it, then wanted to return it but only got $10 back? Sucks, doesn’t it? With a video game club, there’s no reason to fear. Chances are someone bought that new game. From my experience, people are willing to let you try out their game. If you like it, you should buy it. If not, no harm done. It’s also more legal than some other alternatives.
7. Have a better understanding of your skill set and where you rank in the local metagame.
If you play video games by yourself and put in enough time, you usually get the feeling that you’re the best around. More often than not it’s a case of “big fish in small pond”. Not to say you’re not necessarily good, but a video game club provides a larger pond, sometimes even an ocean, to test out your skills. In doing so, you’ll learn more about what you’re doing great and what you need to improve on.
6. Be able to apply lessons from video games in real life.
Just like movies and TV shows, video games can be a great source of information, inspiration, and life lessons. If you don’t believe me, when was the last time you played a video game? Some things I’ve picked up include being able to pronounce foreign names from FIFA, the relationship between people and their environment from Pokemon, and that you can learn from your enemies and rivals to increase your arsenal of skills from Kirby. Some of these range from silly to serious, but all of them come in handy.
5. Players of all levels can improve their skills
If you have never played a game before, playing with others is a good start. If you’re an intermediate skilled player, you have the potential to reach the next level while in the club. And if you are at the top of the power rankings, that could change in an instant if you don’t keep practicing. There’s always a way to reach where you aim to be.
4. Learn more about video game topics you already know a lot about.
Great minds think alike, but sometimes it takes interaction from like minds to learn new things. When you combine people who have different philosophies and strategies in approaching the same games, you can pick up more valuable information and enjoy it even more than you already did.
3. Be introduced to new aspects of gaming.
Everyone has their favorite video games, but the video game universe is a huge and expanding one. Eventually, a new challenge will beckon, and through these clubs, you get an idea of what those challenges are like. You will be encouraged to venture into new territories and your friends will be there along the way. Whether things go well and you love the game or it turns out it’s not for you, at least, you will know what all the hype is about.
2. Develop strong or stronger friendships
There is something to be said about the people I have met through my school’s video game club. They range in major, background, personality, and habits, but they all have these traits in common: passion and kindness. You may think that because people play video games they are antisocial, but not all stereotypes present a lot of truth. We’ve won, lost, cheered, commiserated, succeeded, struggled, and challenged ourselves in our own ways, but through this club, we have an empathy for other people that allow us to make strong friendships when we put our mind to it. These friendships come to fruition at these clubs.
1. Because it’s something you enjoy doing
That’s the bottom line for why you should do anything. If you do not enjoy doing it, you should not be doing it. You only have 24 hours in a day, so spending one or a few of them doing the things you like is great. For many people, it’s video games. So joining a club like the Nintendo Club at UC Davis or any of the other aforementioned clubs is a great investment in their time. Any day where you have time and spend it doing the things you want to do is a day well spent. Don’t let another slip away.
