What is the Idea and Social Club and what do you do?

Keith Sabine: We’re a club that wants to bring people from all different disciplines together to talk about ideas and be social. Every couple of weeks we have an informal table talk that’s open to anyone to come. Basically what we do is set a topic and let people talk about it. Our first event was based on the question, “Are you wasting your time at university?” On top of the table talks, we have official events which have been successful.

What are those official events like?

Marc Yegani: They’re larger scale events where we try to introduce interesting topics as well, like our table talk topics but larger. There, we usually have speaker series, where we bring professors to present. This semester we’re bringing people from outside the university.

We’re trying to attract people and create a common university spirit here, and the events are getting bigger and growing momentum.

How did the club get started?

Rachelle Paulson: I wanted to start a philosophy club. I was in a class with Marc and asked him if he’d be interested in starting a club, and so he brought Justin on and we started to brainstorm about the types of events that we wanted to do, and that’s pretty much how it started.

We didn’t want it to be just people in philosophy so we branched out. Everyone on the team is pretty much in a different major.

Since your start in September, how many events have you had?

MY: We’ve had two speaker series so far. We’re doing one this month on happiness with a couple of psychology professors, and we have another one coming up about the legalisation of cannabis. We also collaborated with the humanities committee for an event in February for the Red Dress Project.

Who can join the club?

Bella Knish: Anyone can come. We have our executive members who are responsible for organizing and networking and we would vet people that are interested in those roles, but otherwise we want as many people as possible to come and participate.

Where can people find your club?

MY: We usually post the topic on Facebook on a Wednesday. A lot of our talks have been in the cafeteria because we want to welcome everybody into our club and show that we are here talking. In the future, most of the talks will be in classrooms.

Is there anything else you’d like students to know about the Idea and Social Club?

Justin Haylin: The fact that our executive is multidisciplinary is important, because the big thing about our club is to branch out. I come from psychology and we have students from sociology, philosophy, and computer science. Just being able to bring these disciplines together, I think, is really an important focus of our club.

MY: We also have a monthly interview series we post online where we interview a professor to show people the man or woman behind the classroom role. Professors love doing it. We never interact with our professors after school and that’s where the real wealth is.

For information on events and discussions, visit the Idea and Social Club’s Facebook Page.

Edited for length and clarity.