When I arrived in Exeter, I had your typical new student worries. How do I make friends again? Would I find my place? What should I do outside my studies? I told myself that the next few years would be a chance to grow, but I was confused how I could start that growth in the first place. What ultimately transformed the route I have taken across university and the career I want to persue wasn’t a dramatic moment or a sudden revelation – it was the simple decision to join a society.

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I came to Exeter from rural Bedfordshire, with nobody back home at university, a gap year full of experiences and a confident personality. Reality hit when I came to university… I’ve got to make friends again and I’ve got to also pursue things outside of my subject. The day I arrived; I found myself in a position where the people around me already knew the whole of Exeter. They had people from home or who they went to school with… I felt like a misfit very quickly and didn’t know how to position myself.

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I’ve always kept myself busy with my hobbies. I enjoyed playing and watching tennis, listening to music, and writing, but I still didn’t know how to explore these elements at university. I joined the University newspaper, Exeposé, after being handed a paper. It made me really start to love journalism and the impact writing can have on other people, but it was all virtual, so I didn’t meet anybody through the society at the start.

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A few weeks went by and I had made friends, but lots of it had felt forced to me, not natural. It was during this time that I decided to join Tennis, as after all this was my favourite sport to watch and play. I decided to take the plunge and go to my first social event with the society. I walked in not knowing anyone, I wasn’t sure what to expect and kept overthinking everything. The moment I stepped through the door, those feelings eased. Committee members greeted me, I met a variety of people from first to third year, and everyone was very welcoming. That first social made all the difference between feeling lost at university and feeling a sense of belonging. I had finally found a group of people that shared a common interest with me, and people that I could share a laugh.

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Across that first year, I joined a community of people to return to each week, giving me a sense of belonging I didn’t realise I needed. It made Exeter feel less like a place I lived in and more like a place where I was truly part of something.

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What surprised me most was how much my confidence grew simply by taking part. I wasn’t consciously trying to improve myself -  I was just enjoying being involved. Yet week by week, I found I met more and more people, quickly meeting some of my best friends at university to this day. By the start of the next academic year, I became Social Sec. Within a year, I had gone from being apprehensive of even going, to organising the socials.

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Within this time frame, my confidence had boosted my writing and ability to put myself out there at Exeposé. I had built up a portfolio and became an editor at the paper. Joining these societies had taught me something new about what I was capable of. The process of saying “yes” - even when I felt slightly unsure - slowly chipped away at the self-doubt I’d carried with me at the start of university.

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Eventually, I started third year, taking on bigger roles with these societies and becoming one of the chief editors of the paper. Whilst I still play tennis and have lots of friends on committee, I look back and remind myself how much joining a society has helped me grow.

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Perhaps the most unexpected part was how far this new confidence reached. It shaped how I approached seminars, group projects and even daily interactions. I became more willing to voice my ideas, more comfortable taking initiative, and more secure in who I was becoming. More importantly, it helped me identify a career path that I love and enjoy. Sometimes it’s not about the destination but the journey and joining a society has encapsulated this saying.

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Joining a society might seem like a small decision, but for me it changed everything. It gave me community, purpose, opportunities—and, ultimately, confidence I didn’t know I had. For any student at Exeter who’s still finding their feet, getting involved could be the first step toward the same transformation.

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