The college students of today are the leaders of tomorrow, they say. If you take a look at the partying, bizarre fashions, and YouTube videos that come out of most schools, that statement has to concern you a bit. Colleges are bound to be breeding grounds for all sorts of weirdness.

Nowhere is that tendency toward weirdness more obvious than in college clubs. From topics as normal as saving the whales to some as strange as dedication to medieval living, college clubs are a manifestation of the budding interests of students. Clearly, some of these buds should never be allowed to bloom.

Following are some of the strangest college clubs I could find. I must say, some of them have me worried. I suppose the ones about which we should be most worried are the ones not listed.

The Quill and the Sword, Brigham Young University

Dungeons & Dragons was just the beginning. Dedicated to studying medieval history through “study, thought, and action,” this club is composed of guilds, one for each trade. They have sewing guilds, blacksmithing guilds, minstrel guilds, dragon-slaying guilds, etc. They meet every week to sharpen their swordsmanship, organize feasts, and call each other by titles like “His Majesty Charles the Blue” (no joke). Check it out: QandS.org.

Anarchist Society, George Mason University

This club was disbanded in 2006 for reasons we can well imagine. Their activities no doubt included tutorials on building explosive devices, selling candy bars to fund that anthrax stockpile, and field trips to the Capitol Building to assess possible structural weaknesses. The scary thing is, anarchists would most likely be undeterred by a college administration crackdown; they’re probably still out there.

Students for an Orwellian Society, Columbia University

For those familiar with George Orwell’s 1984, this club espouses and seeks to forward the philosophies of IngSoc and Big Brother. For those unfamiliar with the book, IngSoc and Big Brother are bad, intent on stamping out individualism, keeping their population in fear, annihilating any sign of free thought, and forcing everyone to wear identical charcoal-colored pajamas. Take Communist USSR and multiply that times ten. Attention, citizens of the free world: the members of this club must never be allowed to fill any important government positions. Check it out: StudentsForOrwell.org.

The Harvard Tiddlywinks Society, Harvard University

No, ‘tiddlywinks’ does not stand for something else more sophisticated or clever. This really is just a club dedicated to playing tiddlywinks. They eat, drink, and sleep the classic game where players press one plastic disc on top of another, propelling it into a bowl or cup or whatever. Then again, I’d prefer tiddlywinks to anarchy or Big Brother any day. Check it out: HCS.Harvard.edu/~htws/.

MIT Assassins Guild, MIT

This club organizes live-action roleplaying games in which they chase each other around campus with foam dart guns, pretending to be assassins. They pretend to be witches, aliens, demons, and special ops soldiers. I don’t know about you, but there is something frightening about the nation’s most brilliant eggheads chasing each other around, pretending to be the Predator- and it’s not just the inevitable lack of proper deodorant. Check it out: MIT.edu/Activities/Assassin/.

Undoubtedly, there are more weird college clubs out there, clubs who are bent on building a stargate or turning the entire world population into Richard Simmons clones.

About the author

Marcus Varner earned his BA in English from Brigham Young University with a Creative Writing emphasis. He is currently in his second year at BYU’s lauded MBA program studying Marketing. He blogs, writes fiction and screenplays, loves movies, and can’t resist playing superheroes with his kids.

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