I’m a sophmore philosophy major here on campus. My opinion of the school is that it is in the middle of nowhere, with almost nothing to do, no places to go an see. This place is the hearth and home of boredom for crying out loud. Before I joined the gaming club, I mostly kept to myself, read philosophy books all the time, and went to the occasional suck *edited* party. I went to my first LAN and was blow away, the feeling of community was beyond palpabable, you couldn’t go there and not want to go back again. I didn’t even know anyone there really yet I felt instantly welcome because it was so very apparent how much the guys in charge really truly cared about this.
Since then I’ve done as much as I can to expand the community and put on a good face for it, admining on servers and giving WCU a good word anytime a student actually asked about the school itself out of interest in attending. Before I joined the club I couldn’t imagine myself for one second recommending the school to others. Since I’ve joined the club I’ve made friends, hung around campus more instead of going home, and had a lot more fun. If anything the gaming club is the best chance at removing the stigma the university has as a suitcase college where everyone heads home for the weeked.
A while back in one of my math classes our professor, always one to get off subject, actually mentioned the gaming club. Some kid sarcastically piped up “Gaming club? What the hell are the going to do at meetings? play pong?” Him and a few other of the greek lifers whom SGA showers with so many funds had a pretty hearty laugh at that. I rolled my eyes and mentioned that we do a hell of a lot actually if you’ve ever been to a meeting. In my mind I’m thinking of the other times I have been to meetings for other clubs, with philosophy or what not. What did we end up doing? Chatting about philosophy, which while it’s my favorite thing bar none in life, it wasn’t so much club business that we dealt with. On that same level of comparison you could goto club meetings for the Gaming Club and you would see bar none the most active, dedicated and least apathetic students on campus. Not that we don’t do a lot in the philosophy club, it’s just that anything any other club does on campus is just simply blown away by the events, the organization, the man hours, the dedication, the trifles, everything we have gone through and argued over and pushed for.
Another illustration of the club’s rising profile then? Take the Carolina Core, they are a professional videogaming team that is currently competing with teams from all over the world, they just played London’s team tonight in the quater finals of the world championship, they beat them 28-15 live on TV. Big stuff right? Now here is the thing, their general manager Mark Dolven idles our IRC channel and reached out to us intially, not because we invited him but because he had heard about our community just through word of mouth alone. He sent us prizes for our latest lan for free, he is even coming up here in the spring with his team for an exhibition match to help raise the profile of our club and to get involved with the community. What does it say about SGA when a private entity knows more about us than our own official student government? It’s say you guys are being lazy, you aren’t doing your job, and you have been undeservedly elected and you can’t equivocate that any other way.
-Brian Brennan