Carlsbad High offers 55 student-led clubs to enhance your extracurricular life. But this list isn’t exhaustive. Students, like me, who hope to create a new club have the opportunity to develop unique ones catering to their various interests.

My friend, Caroline Jethmal, and I decided to create a discussion club to engage in meaningful conversations with other students. While our idea for a low-maintenance philosophy club seemed easy enough, the process of transforming it into a reality took time.

If you are interested in designing a club of your own, start by picking up a Club Packet from the ASB office. This includes information about creating a club constitution, calculating the budget, finding an advisor to oversee each meeting and assembling a roster. After following the instructions and completing the necessary forms, presidents must wait for the approval of their club from the CHS ASB Council, CHS administration and the Carlsbad School Board before meeting.

Once we filled out the paperwork, we created Instagram and Remind accounts to spread the word about our club. Thanks to diligent outreach, we have amassed 50 followers (and counting) and continue to see new faces at our weekly meetings.

But this bare-bones guide to starting a club doesn’t completely prepare presidents for the actual club-running experience. Keeping members focused on the discussion prompt can be a challenge, as conversations can sometimes go in places we don’t expect. To foster engagement, I designated a random roll of tape as the “talking tape”. Only one person can hold the tape at a time, therefore, only one person can speak at once. These types of spontaneous solutions can only be conceived in the moment, and they have taught me lessons about leadership and communication.

After four meetings of the Philosophy Club, we have fallen into a rhythm. At the start of each meeting, we decide a prompt from our list of over 80 questions. These vary from topics like free-will and knowledge to ethics and happiness. This inventory of existential questions and themes continues to grow, as we encourage members to suggest ideas that interest them. Then, we discuss the prompt until the group feels satisfied.

Walk into the Philosophy Club and you’ll see that every member truly benefits from our discussions, contributing to conversations, listening intently and nodding energetically. I look forward to what the future of this club holds, and am proud of the community that I have created.

If you are interested in joining the Philosophy Club, meetings are held at lunchtime every Thursday in Room 2002. Instagram: @chs.philosophy.club; Remind: @kanteven