Surprise! But not really.

  There were some concerns yesterday from my friends who were not aware that I was pulling out of leadership positions in the Society of Physics Students (SPS). There are a few leadership/logical reasons and a few personal reasons. Is this my official resignation letter? Maybe.


Leadership/Logical reasons:

• I had agreed with the faculty advisor that I would pick it up and rebuild it because no one was working on it or seemed interested. 
• A year and a half later, there is increased involvement. 
• Our SPS Constitution needed major revision at the time, one person was doing all the work. The work was divided up more evenly. 
• While there is increased involvement, attendance fell flat in SPS, MAA (the Math student club), and ACM (the computer science major club) after Fall Break. There are few reasons why this happened. 
• Midterm reports came out and students in our majors will freak out. Chill guys you got this, you can still be involved, and it means you may have to give up a little extra time with friends or not drink as much. 
• Conflicts with IT training. They began training student workers during the time that two of the three academic clubs meet.
• One of the academic clubs meet on Saturday. That is definitely not working.
• There were enough students to fill the exec positions.
• I am seeing a slight change in my role as academic senator in SGA as we attempt to define what they do for the faculty and student body
• For the Math/Computer Science/Physics dept.: I feel I can do a better job with decreased responsibilities. 
• I would like to solve the attendance problems in all three clubs.
• I would like to work on my side project more, which is increasing student interactions with the City of Salem. 

  In other words, my focus is shifting from being completely on-campus to increasing visibility across campus and off-campus. 

Personal reasons:

• I feel that I can have greater impact in SGA as senator by decreasing responsibilities in SPS. I will guide SPS as an academic senator as much as I will guide MAA and ACM in that capacity.
• Increased involvement in clubs and organizations over the past year has taken a toll on my personal life. 
• financial struggles that I need to focus on
• I am trying to run two businesses off-campus 
• one business had enough clientele to keep my head above water
• I need new clientele and have not been able to focus on that
• the need to focus on getting into grad school
• GRE
• grades
• exploring grad school options
• I want to increase my involvement in research
• I would like to attend an American Geophysical Union conference before I graduate
• Family and friends think that I am stretching myself too thin and they would be right. 

  I am not sure if this is more of an explanation for you or a public accountability reminder of my goals. Either way, I left SPS with a new focus of outreach, conference attendance, and grad school support because that is what I am hearing from those majors as far as what they want in a club. Time for me to grab onto my new focus.