A Stress-Free Slice of Student Life

While some students spend hours gaming in front of their computer screens, UC Berkeley sophomore Dachuan Yan gets his kicks from a handful of rubber bands and a few friends.

Yan, who founded The Rubberband Club last spring, says he got the idea when his dormmates asked him to teach them the art of shooting rubber bands.

"Shooting rubber bands by myself didn't matter much," says Yan, who picked up the hobby in high school. "If other people were doing it too, it wouldn't be such a waste of time."

Every Friday, the 11-member group meets in front of the Valley Life Sciences Building to play games, such as capture the flag, using rubber bands and cardboard shields.

Yan and the other club members are not alone-on a campus populated with pre-professional and political clubs, groups like The Rubberband Club are becoming more and more popular.

Liz Camacho, who has been an advisor in the Office of Student Life for 15 years, says she has noticed an increase in the number of nontraditional recreational student groups in recent years.

The Rubberband Club is only one of 81 student organizations listed under the "recreational and sports" related groups on the office's Web site aimed at providing students with a recreational atmosphere and a place to unwind.

"Students here have more outside interests and are really interested in doing things outside of being a Cal student," she says.

Along with providing a stress-free activity for students on campus, these recreational clubs have something else in common-they love beginners.

The presidents of each club devote some time at the beginning of each meeting to teach newcomers the basics of the activity.

Another recreational club on campus, The Cal Scrabble Club, encourages players of all levels to come to the meetings and enjoy a good game.

"People think they have to be good to come play Scrabble at the meetings," says Albert Wu, the club's founder and president. "But, that's not true, there are members at all levels."

Wu says he is also pleased to be "helping to change the image of Cal to make it look more laid back."

Wu, who formed the club last semester, says he was surprised UC Berkeley did not have an existing Scrabble club, because he had seen them at other universities.

He used the Facebook, an Internet network of college students, to find students who had listed Scrabble as one of their interests in order to gather a group of signatories for a club constitution.

This week, the club will host its first campuswide Scrabble tournament, which will be open to all students.

With students engaging in Scrabble matches at the club's table in Sproul Plaza and donning the signature club T-shirts, the Cal Scrabble Club has gained enough attention to become an attraction in the UC Berkeley campus tour.

"I was so proud to hear a tour guide point out that UC Berkeley has a Scrabble club, among all the other political and academic clubs, while I was sitting on a bench somewhere on campus," Wu says.

Campus officials say the presence of these clubs reflects the diverse nature of the campus.

"There's a reason why there are clubs like the Cal Scrabble Club here," says Dave Belman, an OSL student group advisor. "Cal promotes students to take charge and do something about their interests."

Still, some students say they opt not to join clubs aimed solely at providing recreational activities.

"I want to do something more productive with my extra time," says Hoe Himm Tan, co-president of Bears for UNICEF. "For me, it's less of a social thing and more of an opportunity for my passions to come into play in what I do."

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