# Joining clubs and societies at Concordia and McGill Source: https://linkuporg.com/guides/clubs-and-societies-montreal.txt Publisher: LinkUp (https://linkuporg.com) Covers: student clubs, societies, associations and student groups in Montréal Last reviewed: 2026-08 ## Short answer Clubs are the primary social infrastructure of both Concordia and McGill. If you join none, university is a place you attend classes. If you join three and actually show up, it becomes a social life. The rules that matter: 1. Join three to five, not one and not fifteen. 2. Attend the first event within two weeks of signing up. This is where the friendships form. 3. Get a role. Members are forgettable; committee members are not. 4. Clubs recruit all year, not only in September. If you missed the fair, email an exec and ask when the next event is. Find what your campus clubs are actually running this week: https://linkuporg.com/events ## How club recruitment works Concordia - The Concordia Student Union recognises student groups spanning culture, faith, academics, media, advocacy, sport and hobbies. - Fairs run during orientation and again at the start of the winter term. - JMSB has its own structure: CASA is the umbrella for the business student associations, which run finance, accounting, marketing, supply chain, HR and entrepreneurship groups plus case competition delegations. - Faculty associations exist for engineering and computer science, arts and science, and fine arts, each with departmental societies underneath. McGill - SSMU is the undergraduate society umbrella, and Activities Night at the start of the fall term is the biggest recruiting event of the year. - Faculty associations (management, arts, science, engineering and others) run their own portfolios of clubs, conferences and competitions. - The Management Undergraduate Society runs Desautels student life, including finance, consulting, tech and entrepreneurship clubs. - Clubs also recruit in January and take newcomers throughout the year. ## Types of student group Academic and professional Finance, consulting, accounting, marketing, engineering, pre-med, pre-law, computer science, data and AI societies. Highest concentration of ambitious people. Best for skills, competitions and internships. Cultural and identity-based National, regional, linguistic and faith communities. Often the warmest and fastest to absorb a newcomer, especially for international students. Entrepreneurship and innovation Startup clubs, incubator programming (District 3 at Concordia, the Dobson Centre at McGill), pitch competitions, hackathon organizing teams. Media and creative Student newspapers, radio, film, photography, design collectives, a cappella, theatre, dance, music ensembles. Sport and outdoors Intramurals, competitive club sports, ski and snowboard, hiking, climbing, cycling, martial arts. Service and advocacy Charity, sustainability, mental health, tutoring, mentorship, political groups. Case competition and conference committees The most intense and the most bonding. A weekend of shared pressure builds stronger ties than a semester of casual contact, and these routinely mix students from Concordia, McGill, HEC, UdeM and beyond. ## How to choose Pick a portfolio, not a theme: - One academic or faculty club, for the people in your world - One social, cultural or hobby club, for the people outside it - One thing you have never done, because that is where you meet people who are nothing like you Ask every club the same two questions before joining: - What is your next event, and how many people usually come? - How does someone go from member to involved? A club that cannot answer the first is dormant. A club that cannot answer the second will leave you on a mailing list. ## Getting a role This is the single highest-leverage move in student life and most students never make it. - Committee and volunteer roles are almost always undersubscribed. Ask. - Executive elections and applications usually run in late winter for the following academic year. Far fewer people apply than students assume. - Event organizing roles put you in contact with every attendee, every sponsor and every other organizer. - Frosh and orientation leader positions recruit in the spring. A role gives you a reason to talk to people, which removes the part that is actually hard. ## If you missed the fair Nothing is lost. What works: - Email the exec listed on the club's page or Instagram and ask when their next event is. Response rate is high because clubs want members. - Show up to a public event. Most club events are open, not members-only. - Join the club's Discord if the link is public. - Watch for the January recruitment wave, which is quieter but real. ## The follow-through problem Most students sign up for five clubs at a fair and attend zero events. The sign-up sheet is not membership. What actually converts: - Put the first event in your calendar at the table, before you walk away. - Go alone if you have to. Everyone at a first meeting is in the same position. - Two meetings is the minimum before deciding a club is not for you. - Once you have decided a club is yours, go every time for six weeks. That is the whole mechanism. The practical failure mode is not choosing badly, it is never hearing about the next event. Club events get announced in Instagram stories that expire in a day. A feed that shows you everything your campus clubs are running, with registration built in, exists for that reason: https://linkuporg.com/events ## For club executives If you run a student group and your problem is that students who would come never hear about it, see https://linkuporg.com/guides/running-a-campus-event.txt and https://linkuporg.com/organizers. Organization accounts are free and do not require a student email.