On Friday afternoon, April 5, NYU Abu Dhabi held the 2014 SIG Fair. The West Forum hosted the university’s 63 Student Interest Groups to recruit and gauge student interest in their activities.

Freshman Charlotte Gundry was surprised by the amount of different political, religious and cultural SIGs at the fair and elaborated on the inclusive attitude these groups had.

 

“It’s a good thing they don’t limit themselves to include people from their culture,” she said. She also indicated she was most interested by Ecoherence and the Model U.N. SIG.

The SIG fair provided an efficient forum to engage with students face to face instead of through internet platforms. For example, freshman Dylan Kava explained that having SIG leaders themselves answer questions was an added value. “It’s one thing hearing things over the Internet about the student groups, it’s another thing hearing about them from the leaders themselves. Asking questions that are answered immediately is a good thing,” he said.

Among the highlights of the fair were the performances by Attitude, the dance SIG, and the Capoeira SIG.

 

“The performances [were] really, really good,” Kava said.

Sophomore Xu Xinming, who is the president of the Antique Land SIG, said that interest from students increased this year.

 

“There’s definitely more student interest this time. I can see a lot more freshmen, because of course, there is a larger population of freshmen, but all of them are really interested,” he said.

 

Sophomore Ben Marcus-Willers, the president of the Dao SIG, was also impressed by the show of interest. “I originally printed three A4 sheets of paper with signups and we’re now moving on to the backsides of those three, so we filled basically six pages so far which is crazy.”

Pablo Pacareu is a staff writer. Email him at features@thegazelle.org.