Beyond the classroom: Finding community through MATC clubs

More Than Just Going to Class

College life doesn’t have to end when class does. Across MATC, student organizations help students meet people with similar interests, build friendships, and turn shared interests into communities. There should probably be more to college than class, homework, and going home to stare at another screen.

Beyond academic and professional organizations, MATC also has general-interest clubs centered on hobbies, creativity, and shared experiences.

Find Your Inner Geek, Then Find Your Cohort

At the Downtown Campus, Mothership, MATC’s Game Development Club, focuses on making games rather than simply playing them.

The three-year-old organization currently has 13 active members and holds Game Jams, where students work together to create a functioning game within a limited amount of time. One of those projects, Space Embezzlers, was showcased at Anime Milwaukee and Midwest Gaming Classics in 2025.

Mothership hopes to attract more than programmers and artists, including writers, musicians, graphic designers, playtesters, voice actors, and students from other creative backgrounds. The club also has its sights set on eventually attending the Game Developers Conference in California.

At the Oak Creek Campus, Imaginative Fiction brings together fans of fantasy, science fiction, and imaginative storytelling. One of the campus’s longest-running clubs, it welcomes interests ranging from books, movies, and comics to anime, video games, and Dungeons & Dragons. Basically, if you’ve ever passionately argued about fictional people, you’re probably in the right neighborhood.

Members gather for an informal Tuesday lunch to talk about what they’re enjoying, with activities ranging from book discussions and movie watch-alongs to Tolkien-focused Fellowship Fridays and Dungeons & Dragons. Future plans include a trade-paperback bookbinding workshop and, if enough students get involved, Worlds Beyond Words, a speculative-fiction convention featuring cosplay and other fandom programming.

For students who prefer experimenting with something a little less fictional, the Ham Radio/Electronics Club meets weekly at West Allis, where its club station is located. About 10 students currently participate in one of MATC’s more faculty-driven student organizations.

Electronic Engineering Technology professor and club founder David Schmocker guides electronics experimentation, provides complimentary computer-based FCC license training, and tutors students preparing for the amateur-radio exam. Approximately eight MATC students have already earned their licenses.

And just how far can amateur radio take you? Schmocker recently returned from two weeks in Saipan, where he bounced radio signals off the Moon and contacted 102 amateur-radio operators around the world, including operators in Japan, Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

“Ham radio makes the world a small place,” Schmocker said.

Those aren’t the only options for finding your particular flavor of geek. The Game Club offers a home for students interested in playing video and tabletop games, while the Animation Club provides another option for students interested in animation, drawing, art, and related creative activities.

Finding Your People

Sometimes the line between a common-interest club and an affinity organization isn’t particularly sharp. The Neurodivergent Student Network, founded in 2025, provides a community where neurodivergent students can socialize, discuss their experiences, and raise concerns affecting their community at MATC.

Meetings can include fidgets, coloring, music, and conversation, while past activities have included storytelling and writing clubs and advocacy involving MATC Student Accommodation Services. The network currently has about six or seven regularly active members and hopes to grow. Its message to students is ultimately about having a place where they can be authentically themselves.

General-interest organizations are only one part of student life. MATC also has affinity, cultural, academic, and pathway-related organizations. The Black Student Union (BSU), for example, hosts its annual Sneaker Ball, proof that student involvement does occasionally require better shoes.

The Rainbow Alliance provides community, advocacy, and social opportunities for LGBTQIA+ students and allies. Students can also find organizations connected to academic programs and career pathways, giving them opportunities to meet people headed into similar fields.

Show Up and Get Involved

Students looking to make a more direct impact on MATC should also consider Student Government. It isn’t exactly a club, but it gives students an opportunity to participate in issues affecting campus life and the college community. If you’ve ever complained about how something at college works, here’s your chance to graduate from complaining to complaining with parliamentary procedure.

And if you have a flair for the dramatic or just a taste for hard-hitting journalism, consider the MATC Times. We’re a student organization, too.

For a current and complete list of student organizations, activities, and information about getting involved, students can contact Student Life.

Joining a club online is a start, but organizations ultimately depend on people actually showing up. For students whose college experience has mostly consisted of class, homework, and home, getting involved offers another possibility: come for the games, books, art, electronics, shared experiences, or whatever particular rabbit hole occupies your free time, and perhaps find your people while you’re there.

A name on a membership list is a start. Showing up is where a club becomes a community.