By Marissa Schaeffer
Missouri S&T’s Department of Student Involvement recently hosted the 9th annual Minerama event. The occasion took place on Friday, August 23 from 11am to 2pm at the Missouri S&T Havener Atrium. Minerama is an involvement fair organized for students to have the opportunity to learn about and interact with over 100 campus organizations. All registered organizations through S&T are welcome to run a booth and promote their club. This year there were 182 booths that participated in the event, including S&T organizations, campus departments, local nonprofits, and local business as well. Clubs ranging from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to the Trap and Skeet club to Concrete Canoe design team all attended the event. This fair largely highlights S&T student’s diversity in interests, even though the university is tailored toward STEM majors.
The event is a great way for incoming students to see all of the unique interests Missouri S&T and the Rolla community have to offer. Students can walk around the maze of booths looking at flyers, poster boards, and interacting with students in those clubs to learn more about them. Students can sign up to join email listservs for any organization they may be interested in and receive information on weekly meeting times. This helps to integrate new students at S&T through involvement and trying new activities during their time in college. It is also an opportunity for school organizations to showcase their accomplishments through word of mouth from the students running their club’s booth as well as explaining the experiences they have had.
It may seem that Minerama is geared toward freshman students; however, the event drew a large crowd even from the upperclassmen. From a small survey of S&T students who attended the event, 50% of the students were actually upperclassmen. Some of the upperclassmen were running the booths, but one junior stated, “There were lots of stands. I found out about clubs I had never heard of and I'm a junior.” While a campus Resident Assistant stated “Great things! I'm an RA at TJ and the freshmen really appreciated the experience.”
Many students heard of the event through Facebook, flyers, posters, and from other students causing a large crowd at the atrium. However, with such a large number of organizations there, it was a little overwhelming for some students stating “it was packed” and had “too many booths.” Overall though, the event was a big success and brought “lots of diversity in different organizations on campus” according to another student. From a small student survey conducted, 75% of the students would go back Minerama next fall. Additionally, 75% believe the event was helpful to students. This year advisor Jennifer Mueller took the lead on hosting and organizing the event. A big thank you to student involvement office and Jennifer Mueller for hosting this event for the student body!
