How to Choose a PM Student Club to Join
The best time to learn about product management is when you’re a student! As a student, you have a variety of resources at your disposal, and you have ample time to explore various opportunities.
But, as a student, it can be pretty difficult to figure out how to get started on your product management career. What classes should you take? How do you get an internship? What can you expect in the interview process?
One of the best ways to get all of these questions answered is to join a product management student club. Student organizations are 100% focused on ensuring that you succeed, and they pull together resources, events, and speakers to help get you on the right track.
So, let’s talk about how to find out about product management organizations on campus!
How to find out about product management organizations on campus
Whether you’re a college student, a grad student, or a high school student, your campus has lots of “student life” resources available for you. After all, schools want to see you succeed, so most schools have dedicated departments to make sure you can find the right clubs!
The first thing you’ll want to do is go to your school’s website and look for any sort of student club directory. I graduated from UC Berkeley, so we’ll use UC Berkeley as an example here.
I navigated to the UC Berkeley website and searched for “student clubs.” This then led me to the virtual student club directory here: https://callink.berkeley.edu/Organizations
I then searched for “product” in the virtual student club directory, and I can see that there are multiple product management organizations at UC Berkeley! I can click into each one to learn more, and I can also find their contact information to ask any questions on my mind.
Another great way to learn about student organizations is to check out club fairs. For example, most schools will typically kick off a new semester or a new quarter with various booths for each of the student clubs.
I’ll use UC Berkeley as an example again. Every semester, we have an event called Calapalooza, where student organizations have dedicated booths that they set up to market to prospective members. Calapalooza has been a great resource for me personally, as I found lots of interesting student organizations during my time as a student at UC Berkeley!
So, now we know which product management student organizations are on our campus. But, how do we pick which one to join?
How to select the right product management student club for your needs
We shouldn’t just pick any random student club - after all, joining a club means that we’re committing significant time to a specific organization!
So, we should do a bit of research and analysis before we decide on a club to join.
First, we need to determine “what we want to get out of club membership.”
Are you looking to meet other students who are interested in the same space? Or are you looking for product management internships?
Are you looking to prepare for a career in product management, and you want to focus on skill labs and workshops? Or are you looking to get hands-on experiences through live group events like hackathons and pitch competitions?
It’s important for us to determine what our needs and objectives are, because that’s how we’ll decide on which club to join!
Once we’ve decided on what we want to get out of our product management student organization experience, we can now vet each option using those criteria. Which PM student club is best suited for our needs?
And of course, we should also consider our own constraints. We need to decide whether the time commitment is worth it. And, if the club charges a membership fee, we’ll also need to decide whether the monetary cost is worth it too.
We’ve now got a pretty solid grasp on how to select the right PM student org for us!
But, sometimes there won’t be a pre-existing PM-focused club on campus. After all, product management is a relatively new discipline, and some schools simply won’t have active student clubs available for aspiring product managers.
What should we do in those situations?
How to select alternative student organizations
If you don’t see a product management-focused club on campus, first check to see whether there are organizations with adjacent interests.
The following student interest clubs tend to also cover product management in some way, shape, or form:
Tech
Computer science or computer engineering
Marketing
Minority-focused groups
As an example, at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Women in Business student group holds case competitions, which are valuable for aspiring product managers. So, don’t be afraid to check out adjacent interests too!
But, what if you don’t find anything that fits your needs?
Well, you can always start your own student club on campus! It’s a great way to stand out as a future PM candidate, and you’ll have lots of great experiences to share in the PM interview process.
Speaking of PM interviews - if you’re preparing for PM interviews right now, you should make sure that you understand what kinds of questions interviewers will ask you, so that you learn how to position your answers for maximum effectiveness. Consider using our self-paced course Solving the PM Interview to succeed!
Summary
The best time to get started on your product management journey is now! If you’re a student, take advantage of product management student clubs on campus, so that you can learn more about the ins and outs of product management with a group of fellow students.
To find what clubs are on campus, use a student club virtual directory, or check out student club fairs and events!
To decide which club is the best fit for you, take the time to think through what you want to get out of club membership. Then, use the “learning objectives” that you’ve decided on to evaluate each club.
If there isn’t a dedicated PM club on campus, check out other related clubs, since they might also cover PM-related topics. Otherwise, consider launching your own PM club. Check out our guide on how to start your own product management student club.
We can’t wait to see how you’ll grow in the coming years as a product manager!
