Why I Joined New Beta: Joseph Wilson

Hi everyone! I'm Joseph and I'm the founder of Nu Beta at the German Sport University in Cologne. I am currently a Master's Degree student in an English language course program at the university. I first learned about the uni while doing ethnographic research in Seattle on a women's basketball team when a PhD student from Spoho and I happened to meet. They told me all about the university, and within a year I was applying to become a student.

I think it's amazing that there's an entire university devoted to sports-related fields of study and I had an incredible start to my first year. One thing I noticed however is how different German universities are to American ones. Most US universities have fraternities and sororities that directly partner with individual unis- something I noticed Spoho didn't have. Simultaneously, I noticed a trend in my peers asking each other for academic support and social networking for use after graduation. That's exactly what fraternities are for!

I decided to start Nu Beta to create a support network for students at Spoho both during school and after graduation to help foster support and community among students. On top of that, I learned that many fraternities in Germany have a long history of exclusivity- sometimes in a not-so-great way. That's why I decided to make Nu Beta open to any fully-enrolled students at Spoho. This way we can provide a space for people of any gender, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, religion, etc to have a place to both receive and provide support to and from their fellow Spoho students.