Being a member of your school's programming board is an absolute blast in at least 100 different ways and I love it so much. Being a part of my school's programming board brings me so much joy because I love facilitating more than I do participating. What I mean by that is I find it rewarding to put on event for other's enjoyment more than the pleasure I get from enjoying an event itself.

In college, you will have many opportunities to go to events on your campus for free. Perhaps win a door prize and eat some free food. Most definitely be entertained for the night. In a sense, that is the point of a programming board: to provide for your campus entertainment for your campus.

First and foremost, I love service and I love people. So, I found my programming board very attractive because it combines the two. By working with others to provide for the campus, there is a sense of fulfillment that what you are doing is good and that people enjoy what you are doing for them. Then there is the warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when students walk up to you and praise you for your selection and work. "That was such a cool event!" "Can you do this every semester?" "Great choice, guys."

Just thinking about it has me all smiley!

Other than the sense of fulfillment and all of the warm and fuzzy feelings, there is a great deal of satisfaction from facilitating an event successfully. If you are reading this article and you are on a programming board, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If you aren't, a WHOLE NEW WORLD is about to open up to you.

Putting on an event on campus takes a lot of cooperation and preparation. First, an event is an idea. "We should bring more musical acts." "Can we host a Build-A-Bear Workshop on campus?" "Let's just bring an entire kennel of puppies to the quad for some puppy therapy." Then the event needs to be discussed and decided upon. You can talk about all of the pros and cons, the possible audience it will reach, will people want to attend, when the appropriate time to host the event would be, where would be a good place to have it and if you even have the money for it.

Bringing G-Eazy to your campus would be AWESOME, but do you have $150,000 to spend on him? Do you have the appropriate equipment and spacing for such a popular act? Is there even an interest of a G-Eazy concert on campus? And if your programming board decides to bring him, you'll most likely have to work around his schedule and touring dates. On top of that, you'll have to make sure the venue you want for him is available and and to his specification and needs. All of this is being discussed and even debated while trying to come up with a contract so he is guaranteed to put on a performance and he gets his money.

After all of that is FINALLY decided on, that's when things are kicked into high gear. You have an act, you have a date, time, location and you have the money earmarked, now is the time for awareness and advertising. Make a Facebook event, tweet out the details for students, design flyers to hang and handout, find volunteers to work, etcetera, etcetera. On top of all of that, you need to make sure that everybody understands everything about the event. They need to be sure they know everything about the event so they can better relay the information versus them waiting for a response and getting back to their friends later.

Then there is all of the work to be done for before, during and after the event. Set up, facilitation and clean up. With an act like G-Eazy, you'll have to make sure the venue is cleaned up, you have volunteers organized to work various aspects of the event like merchandise, sign-in and security and you need to be sure that everything is prepped for your act in the green room.

FINALLY it is time for the actual event. People get into place and do their responsibilities. If there is any trouble, shoot a message in the GroupMe or try and get things fixed by yourself. Work work work work work. Make sure everybody leaves when the event is over unless there is photos and autographs afterward. Clean the venue. Etcetera.

Then its time to decompress, assess the event, talk about what went right and what went wrong and how you can do things better.

Lather, rinse and repeat for the next event.

At the end of it all, I feel an immense amount of satisfaction from the entire experience. To see all of the work I have put into an event with my programming board and how much the event was enjoyed really warms my heart. I cannot imagine my college experience just attending events the whole time. Facilitating events has become a keystone to my college experience.

I'll take facilitation over participation any day.