If you start a club, they will come. Just ask Ciara

Despite a busy schedule as a legal studies major, Ciara co-founded the new Women in Pre-Law club. You can make a difference too.

If you had a chance to prep for your future, meet new friends, and give back to your university, would you?

Ciara has. In her third year as an Honours Arts co-op student, she launched a student club, Women in Pre-law UW, with incredible results. What started out as a first-year pipe dream between Ciara and her friend Isabelle, another Honours Arts student, is now a popular club with over 150 general members.

In the first week alone, Women in Pre-law UW picked up 70 members, including women of all backgrounds from engineering and biology to those in environmental studies, accounting and financial management.

“We thought there’s a club for legal studies majors, but not one for people who say, ‘Hey, I’m interested in law, but I’m a biology major,’” said Ciara, who was surprised by the reaction they got when they pushed the idea out on Instagram back in the fall. “Instead of women just saying they wanted to join, we heard a lot of feedback like, ‘Wow, this is a missing piece. We’re so glad you did this.’”

Ciara was also glad that Isabelle didn’t let the dream die after they first discussed it a couple of years ago. She admitted she was hesitant at first when Isabelle reached out to her later to see she was interested in making it a reality.

“At first I was thinking, ‘Oh, I have so much on my plate. This seems so stressful. But then I thought about the impact it would make,” she said. Besides, it would mean building a community after years of pandemic social distancing and loneliness for many students. “I really did want to meet like-minded individuals – and I thought starting a club would build some sort of legacy.”

Despite its eventual popularity, creating Women in Pre-law UW took dedication to get it off the ground. It took months for Ciara and Isabelle to fill out the required Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) forms and pull together the material to make the case that the club filled a need. They worked hard on its mission statement and were able to show they had at least 15 prospective members interesting in joining, although they were able to convince 30 students without much effort, said Ciara.

“They really take these clubs seriously,” she said of WUSA. “You really have to put some time into creating a club and planning out a constitution, including details on executive team roles, a purpose, mission, and so on. We had to write a lot of papers and spend hours planning out our club with the hopes of approval by WUSA.”

After getting the club up and running, she would spend a couple of hours each day coordinating with the team, which includes a vice president of social media and marketing and others who run events. There are inspirational “women of the week” posts that go out over social media and profile exceptional women who have made a difference in the legal system. The club also helps educate members about possible careers in law that go well beyond the courtroom or traditional legal firm. Ciara herself said she wasn't 100 percent convinced she will become a lawyer, but other areas of law are fascinating.

Although the club kept her busy, Ciara said her minors in philosophy and sociology had helped her explore the academic realm and personal interests more in-depth. Philosophy in particular had been life-changing with its broad scope of challenging topics and its ability to force her to learn how to think clearly and express herself.

But it was her co-op education that has had the biggest impact, she said.

She earned a position as co-op analyst in policy development and performance management at Toyota Manufacturing Canada, which complements her degree. But her first co-op placement, at local start-up ApplyBoard, taught her how to think quickly in a fast-paced environment.

“I’ve experienced, you could say, two start-up cultures. One in the workplace, and one through co-founding a club. There’s definitely a lot of challenges when you’re starting from scratch,” she explained. “But co-op lets me explore different jobs and see how my personality lines up with them. Law school could totally still be the outcome for me, but co-op is a tool to explore all the different careers.”

As for advice to other students thinking of launching a new club too? “Go for it,” she said. “Instead of just going to my classes and focusing purely on academics, it feels nice to be able to start something and watch other people grow within that.”