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<aside> 💡 Recommendation
Make sure you are planning to spend a good amount of time and effort on ensuring the few weeks of the semester go smoothly for the group.
The first few weeks of your semester are the most important. The work you do during the break and during the first few weeks will account for most of your success or failure during the semester. If you are able to effectively conduct a recruitment cycle, organize an amazing group, or properly kick-off a fellowship or program, you likely set yourself up for success. If you have any large problems that arise, chances are you didn’t put in the right/enough work during this key time period.
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First interactions (first group meetings, organizer meetings, recruitment conversations) set the tenor for every future interaction and disproportionately impact all future interactions. If there’s any interaction to prioritize, it's the first one. A great first meeting could completely change someone's trajectory. A bad one will indicate to students that they should spend their time elsewhere.
Students have more time since classes/other commitments have not yet gotten time-consuming. (Potential) organizers are also most free for the same reasons, so this period is unique for programming that requires a lot of organizer capacity (like tabling and running retreats). Students, especially younger students, are looking for and exploring activities, friends/social groups, and more broadly interesting ways to spend their time. What they choose often persists long-term. The clubs students are highly involved with seem to very often be clubs they got involved with in their first year.
As an illustrative anecdote, a cappella groups at Stanford do all their advertising and recruiting during new student orientation (before non-first-years have even arrived on campus) and have their auditions on the first week of campus, ending with an intense social (waking them up early in the morning on Friday and then spending the full day with them/often going on a weekend retreat). They do their recruitment this way to somehow convince nearly 100 students across all a cappella groups each year (and far more who audition) to spend 6+ hours/week singing and helping the group, before these students even have the chance to consider other clubs. This is despite the fact that singing/a cappella group organizing will not be relevant to the vast majority of students’ careers/future plans. This anecdote has been mentioned to demonstrate the power of making a positive impression before others and how path-dependent the beginning of the year is.
The biggest bottleneck is not knowing what actions to take and how to perform them efficiently.
If you are a new group, we recommend spending most of your time at the beginning of the semester finding co-organizers and strong members.
If you are an established group, we recommend spending most of your time making sure your core programs (fellowships, AI safety programs, etc.) are set up for success. If you can ensure these start off well, chances are they will continue to go well later in the semester.
If you want any advice on what to spend your time on, feel free to ask us during a quick-access chat.