7 reasons to join nwPlus
With less than a week before application deadline, here’s why you should join one of the best clubs at UBC
It’s that magical time of year again — finals are coming, summer is near, and clubs at UBC are looking for their next generation of leaders. This time last year I was looking for my next big thing, and that’s when I took a leap of faith and applied to join nwPlus.
I’m Kevin, this year’s Marketing Director for nwPlus! The funny thing is, prior to this role I had no experience in marketing, let alone for one of the largest clubs on campus. Despite this, the team took me on and with their support and careful help, I developed these skills to help promote this year’s events.
7 reasons don’t come close to telling the experience that I had this year, but I hope they will help you seek out that experience, your next big thing, and I hope you find it here with us, at nwPlus.
Here are 7 reasons why you should join nwPlus.
1. You meet great people and experience an amazing team culture.
If you’ve applied to or worked for any company, chances are you’ve had the term “work hard, play hard” hammered into your head. While it’s often a tacky phrase used to describe working environments, its intentions describe nwPlus perfectly.
Some of the most hardworking people I know in my entire life are in this club. It is no exaggeration that we put in 20+ hour weeks leading up to our events, and you just feel like you need to keep up with all the amazing people around you.
This year was my first experience in a marketing related role, and while learning the ropes on how to lead a team, I was trying to get familiar with the culture at nwPlus. I struggled at the beginning of the year, but the team only encouraged and supported me, whether it was picking up side tasks to free up my time or just providing advice as friends.
On the flip side, we’re all really a bunch of students just trying to have fun. We’re always looking for excuses to do things together, whether it’s Day of the Longboat, carving our hackathon logos into pumpkins, having breakfast for dinner in our PJs, or taking photos with mall Santa. I’m fortunate to have found not only a group of teammates, but also friends, who I can’t imagine life without now.
2. You get to live the organizer’s hackathon experience.
There isn’t anything quite like a hackathon, but my attempt at describing it is “the 24 hours before your term group project is due except this time, there’s free food, goodies, and ultimately we’re all just here for a good time”.
As with any event, small or large, there are so many things that happen behind the scenes to create the attendee experience. It’s like cooking — you have a lot of ingredients that need to come together in some specific way to create a delicious meal for the people you care about. The occasional problem comes up, but working together as a team to fix them efficiently is part of the fun!
But in the end, when everything comes together and you see people laughing, having fun, and working hard, it just feels right. The adrenaline rush you get from having to run place to place and making sure your attendees are enjoying the event is like nothing else I have experienced.
Also, being a “hackathon organizer” sounds pretty cool.
3. Your wardrobe expands exponentially.
Okay, maybe not exponentially, but you do get a lot of free stuff.
Jokes aside, you truly don’t realize how many hackathon t-shirts and club apparel you have until you step back and take a deep look at your closet. In addition to the organizer shirts you get from each hackathon, you also tend to pick up some legacy items from last year’s styles. In fact, I am wearing the cmd-f attendee t-shirt from 2019 as I’m writing this piece.
4. You start recognizing people.
I’ve always been more of a shy and “keep to myself” kind of guy, and as such, I don’t go out of my way to meet new people in my classes. That’s still true to this day, but after joining nwPlus, the number of people I recognized in my classes was surprising.
Maybe it doesn’t mean a lot to you, but for me, I’ve never thought of my classes as a social setting. I always (sometimes) went to class, listened (sometimes), and then left (always). At the start of this year, I found that I had nwPlus friends in literally every class I had.
You also start recognizing the faces of some of your hackathon attendees, and maybe one day, if I get over my social anxiety, I can use nwPlus as an excuse to make friends (“hey… were you at nwHacks last weekend?”).
I am a computer science student so your millage may vary, but this was an unexpected and very welcomed benefit of joining this club.
5. You develop “real life” (aka job) skills.
This is probably common among most clubs, but by virtue of working with a team, you develop extremely valuable and transferable soft skills. I am currently on my first co-op work term and the transition to a professional working environment has been smooth thanks to my time with nwPlus.
A lot of our work translates or mirrors the work at an “actual company” — we use Slack to keep in sync, we have weekly meetings, we need to work between and within departments, and we need to learn to work together.
Your ability and prowess in these seemingly small and menial elements is not at the forefront of your everyday thoughts, but rather something you realize when a coworker gives praise. When you develop these skills, your daily interactions become much smoother and you don’t even know it most of the time.
A tangential point: being at our events gives you chances to meet our many sponsors and potential employers.
6. You meet awesome people outside of the club.
Attendees, volunteers, sponsors, and even other hackathon organizers — there’s no shortage in the number and variety of people that you get to meet. Our events bring hundreds of people together, each with their own experiences, perspectives, and stories!
Being at our each and every one of these events provides you with the unique opportunity to connect with all of these people, who are just as passionate about tech as you! The connection doesn’t end with our events though — we love keeping in touch with our friends, whether it’s a returning hacker or a brand new sponsor. Meeting new people opens up so many opportunities in life, and you might find your next best friend or future employer by being a part of nwPlus!
7. You get as much as you put in.
I’ve said this to so many people when I talk about nwPlus, but it’s true: you get as much as you put in. The more you get involved with the club, its inner workings, and the people, the more experiences you get. Like other points in this article, you might think, “Well isn’t that true for any club?”
Perhaps one of my favourite aspects of nwPlus is how we live by a decentralized and flat team structure. Hierarchy is second to your efforts and voice — we always listen regardless of how long you have been in the club or what position you hold.
There is immense room for growth and to make your opinions heard because the club is structured as such. Nobody feels scared to speak up because they aren’t a team lead, and we all have this investment and collective ownership in our club and community’s well-being.
And that’s all! I know I haven’t done justice to describing the many facets of our club, but this a peek into our inner workings. There are many more amazing aspects of nwPlus, like being a positive and supporting team, sharing our love for hackathons with other organizers, and how motivated and excited our team is. At this point I’d say apply to see what we’re all about!
I’ve only been with nwPlus for one year, and I can’t wait to see what I can accomplish with this group next year. So like me, I encourage you to take that leap of faith.
Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting on the other side to catch you.
Words by Kevin Zou, 2019/2020 Marketing Director
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