Remember your first Club Fair?

You look around you as bodies and students push past. You’re in the Air Academy High School courtyard, and it’s club sign up day. All around the courtyard are tables advertising different clubs to the students, all vying for attention. You can barely count all the tables, obscured from view by the plentiful crowd of students. It’s your freshman year, and you don’t know what to do. So many choices! So many clubs!

As the school year gains more and more momentum, Air Academy High School’s long list of clubs begins to fill the schedules of students left and right. There are more than 50 clubs at AAHS, and for incoming freshman, this can be quite a daunting situation to be thrown in. 

Every year, AAHS hosts a club sign-up day in the courtyard, and for the new students, having so many options can be almost overwhelming. This presses the question: what clubs and activities are best for new members of AAHS?

Many students who have registered in clubs have been repeatedly doing them for years. “Make sure you know what your schedule looks like when you sign up,” said freshman Franz Reiser.

With clubs, incoming freshman need to make sure their schedules can flex around whichever activity they want to partake in, otherwise in and out of school activities may clash. 

On club day, students need to make sure their schedules are compatible with whatever club or activity they sign up for, or it could lead to a whole heap of trouble.

Some students have lots of free time, which leads to lots of clubs. Clubs end up not being an interruption to their schedule, and instead become their schedule.

For sohpomore Nikolas Cannon, having many clubs in his schedule is a vibrant highlight to his day. He’s in four clubs: Rubik’s Cube club, DND club, rock climbing club, and guitar club.

“I always found those subjects interesting, I wanted to be around people with similar interests,” said Cannon.

Several students commented on how a club or activity keeps them interested in hobbies that they wouldn’t practice without clubs. Clubs might not just be a time filler, they’re also a way of keeping students interested in different topics.

Additionally, the emotional reward that clubs provide is very fulfilling for a lot of students. Julia Kathryn, the president of gay-straight alliance (GSA), said, “Running GSA is beyond rewarding. I get a chance to create a safe space for all students.”

Many of the clubs at AAHS are unique to the school. Take Rubik’s Cube club for example; it is a club where students gather to solve Rubik’s Cubes. As simple and basic as it sounds, there’s much more to the club than many may assume.

“I like the connection to the teacher that runs the club, and how friendly everyone is,” said William Goodpaster, a member of the club. The club has been up and running for over two months.

Multiple members of the club are speedsolvers, people who solve the cube as fast as they can in competition. There are many different types of Rubik’s cubes, ranging from a normal cube to a twelve sided dodecahedron shape.

“I only learned how to solve a cube three weeks ago and my best time is one minute and thirteen seconds,” said Goodpaster. “I learn something new every time I go.”

Other clubs include drama club and Thespian Honor Society, and the two often get confused as being one and the same. Thespian society is one of the only national honor societies, and the members are skilled student actors and playwrights, having had to fill out a list of requirements to be able to join. Drama club is for anyone who enjoys acting on a daily basis and would like to join.

“So many people welcomed me and helped me out freshman year[. I]t’s one of the places I can feel safe,” said Camille Tambos, a member of the drama club.

For all students registered, clubs create a more fulfilling atmosphere in high school as a whole. Some students use clubs to have fun and some use them to take up time, but for all they are escapes from a tense academic life. Be it the Rubik’s Cube club, guitar club, the Thespian Honor Society, or anything in between, clubs have the potential to create positive memories for students for many years to come.