Why I joined the Child Nursing Society at ARU

ARU student Abbi describes how she became involved in the Child Nursing Society, what her role is and how it's helping her to build her CV.

Students have lots opportunity to get involved in university life – including joining student-led societies.

At the start of every year, ARU holds an event called Freshers' Fair. This is where students come together will all the societies, learn what they do and can sign up to join them. There's also the opportunity to be involved in the committees of societies. This involves being part of a team, organising and running all the events a society wants to put on throughout the year.

Joining the committee

This year I decided to get involved with the committee of the Child Nursing Society as it is my passion to learn more about my future career so that I feel more knowledgeable when I qualify.

I decided to become the president and I asked a few of my colleagues if they would be interested in being involved too. They became the Administrator, Treasurer, Events Officer and the Fundraising Officer.

Planning our society's events

In order to organise all of our events for the year we decided to hold a meeting to discuss what we wanted to do. We came up with the following ideas.

• Give it a go quiz: an opportunity for everyone could get together at the end of the academic year and have some fun. It went really well! 
• Trip to the Florence Nightingale museum: we feel this would be beneficial to learn about the history of nursing and how it will affect our careers in the future. 
• Guest speakers day: inviting professionals into the University to talk about their experiences in healthcare and how we can use their experiences in our careers. 
• Medical ball: organising a party to celebrate all of our successes at the end of the year. We will be fundraising in order to organise this. 
• Fundraising: we would like to do some fundraising for local hospitals and charities that mean a lot to us. We will hold events throughout the year in order to do this.

Gaining experience and building my CV

As a committee member I am able to log volunteering hours and gain certificates which will help build up my CV and make me different from other applicants when I am applying for jobs.

We also have access to a ‘committee hub’ which helps us to run our society. It is where we do all our training, the health and safety forms, and can get help with running our societies.

Top tips for running a student society

If I was to give students three tips about running a society I would say:

1. Keep a diary so you know what you are doing and when 
2. Make a message group with the committee so that you can stay in contact easily
3. Make it fun! Don’t be too serious, be aware that people have other things to do and be flexible with everyone. 

If you're thinking about joining or running a society at ARU I would say ‘give it a go’. I have really enjoyed it so far and have met lots of new people through doing it.

Explore ARU

Abbi studies BSc (Hons) Child Nursing at ARU. Find out more about our undergraduate degrees, and all the ways you can get involved in student life, at one of our Open Days.

Find out more about our Students' Union and student-led societies.