This week, thousands of Sun Devils will be flooding the walkways and classrooms of campus, and back-to-school club tabling events can offer students a place to connect and bond with their peers over shared interests.
Members of student clubs and organizations have the opportunity to speak with students and promote themselves at a variety of tabling events, spanning across the Tempe, Downtown Phoenix, Polytechnic and West Valley campuses.
While some tabling events have already concluded, others will continue to be held throughout the week of Aug. 23, which can be found on ASU's Welcome Week page.
The Women's Business Leaders Association is one of many organizations planning to be in attendance at the Tempe campus tabling events, which the organization uses as a primary method of recruitment for new members.
WBLA President Kristin Lande, a junior studying business entrepreneurship and business, said tabling can be an effective way to reach students who are new to the W. P. Carey School of Business.
"It's really important to show up and show our values and what we are like as a club and get to meet some of the girls," she said.
Lande herself first learned about WBLA from a tabling event, and she added that the in-person nature of tabling helped to humanize the club members and made the organization as a whole seem less intimidating.
Jack Panzarella, a graduate student studying global security and the president of the Arizona Outdoors Club, also noted the significance of in-person tabling events to start off a new school year.
"Obviously, having a website's good, you could get a basic overview, but any intricate questions you want to ask that maybe you don't want to send an email for, tabling events are good for that," Panzarella said. "It puts a face to the organization."
Tabling events can hold additional benefits for new students coming from out of state, Panzarella said, who himself was an out-of-state student and used tabling events to get involved on campus as a freshman.
The personal nature of ASU's tabling events — brought to life by organizations like WBLA, the Arizona Outdoors Club and others — is especially important in the face of the stress that many new students experience at the start of the school year.
"I remember my freshman year, I was so nervous — which is understandably so," said Sharik Luengas, a senior studying business and vice president of finance for the Hispanic Business Students Association. "You're just now starting a new stage in life, you don't know anyone and you're trying to put yourself out there. That's a pretty vulnerable thing to do, and so I would say, if you don't know how to start, just go to these tabling events."
For organizations like the Indian Students' Association at ASU, the timing of these back-to-school tabling events plays a role in its effectiveness at encouraging students to build connections within the broader ASU community.
"This entire week at the beginning of the semester, that's very crucial for all of the clubs because that's the main time where you get to interact with students before the hassle of the semester begins and everyone just gets busy," said Aashi Udhani, a junior studying computer science and the president of the ISA.
To capitalize on the rewarding elements of back-to-school tabling events, some campus organizations spend extensive time working with their members to ensure tabling is done right.
Executive officers of HBSA place an emphasis on instructing their directors to actively approach and engage with interested students who may be shy or more reserved, Luengas said.
WBLA gives similar attention to how its members are tabling and specifically focuses on building genuine connections with students who approach their table, Lande said.
"The most important thing is knowing your audience — kind of figure out who you're talking to, get to know them just as much as they're trying to get to know you," she said. "It should be a back-and-forth type of conversation rather than us just speaking at somebody."
Students can find a full list of student organizations on Sun Devil Central and may be able to spot some organizations that will be out and about at the variety of back-to-school events spanning the coming weeks.
"Any kind of interest that you have, ASU probably has a club over here for it, and I think that's really amazing," Udhani said. "And interacting, it gives a chance to both the students and the clubs to connect with each other."
Edited by Dhemi Bell, Carsten Oyer and Kate Gore.
Reach the reporter at sluba@asu.edu and follow @samluba6 on X.
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Sam Luba is a Senior Reporter with the State Press, focusing on longer form news stories and breaking news coverage. He is a Sophomore studying political science and justice studies, and is a competitor with Sun Devil Mock Trial. He was the Editor-in-Chief of his high school news magazine. He is in his 3rd Semester with the State Press, working previously as a Part-Time Political Reporter.
