There are a number of career-related clubs on campus that students can join to learn more about an area of study, boost a resume or make connections. Some of these clubs require large time commitments or hefty fees, but Alpha Epsilon Delta isn’t one of them.
Alpha Epsilon Delta is a pre-professional health honors society and service organization. While there are lots of health-based organizations to choose from at SDSU, AED focuses more on the academic side and service side of health majors than the career training.
Sophomore biology major Scott Schmidhauser is the president of AED.
“It’s a really unique organization, because it’s not just an honors society, it’s also a service organization, because all of the healthcare careers are also service careers,” Schmidhauser said.
The requirements to join AED are simple. Members must have a 3.2 GPA, pay the $10 fee and attend at least five events during the semester.
Club leaders emphasized that the club tries not to be too demanding when it comes to members’ time.
A large part of what AED does is provide an organized environment in which members can study and volunteer in the community.
“Other people are doing the same thing that they are, it just helps members have a place to to be studying a lot and volunteering a lot,” Schmidhauser said.
One of the services that AED provides is its tutoring program, which is free for members and $5 for non-members.
Junior biology major Niveen Kryakos is vice president of AED. She has been involved in AED for a year, and learned about it a year before officially becoming a member.
“I found out about it my first semester of sophomore year when they held the biology tutoring sessions,” Kryakos said.
“I went to their meetings but I decided to really commit myself this year so I ran for vice president.”
Besides hosting tutoring sessions, AED also reaches out to other organizations to help serve the community.
“Last year we partnered with the Red Cross to hold a blood drive, and it went really well,” Schmidhauser said. “We actually exceed the capacity for pints of blood their truck could hold.”
AED was able to organize the blood drive to be in the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union. While blood drives are often held at the top of Campanile Drive, the club believes that the different location increased traffic.
Other events that AED hosts for its members include networking workshops and study sessions.
The honors society doesn’t focus on hosting bonding events for its members, instead focusing more on professional and academic growth.
According to the website, other activities include “sponsoring community service events, a blood drive, hands-on learning in professional health fields, workshops on how to write personal statements, tips on the application process and much more. The society also features guest speakers at meetings, hospital tours, and social events.”
