CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—On Sat., Feb. 23, more than 90 Armenian youth from all over the Northeast flocked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for an evening of dancing and socializing at an event organized by students groups from five prominent colleges and universities in Greater Boston.
Students came from as far away as Columbia in New York, Yale in New Haven, Conn., Brown in Providence, R.I., and the University of Massachusetts Amherst to attend the event, which also drew local college students from Boston College (BC), Boston University (BU), Harvard, Lesley, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, and Wellesley College.
“The event had a fantastic turnout. We are definitely hosting another social this year, if not by the end of this semester,” said Sarine Shahmirian, one of the event organizers from the MIT Armenian Society. Even though similar events have been held in the past, for many of the attendees this was their first opportunity to socialize with their fellow Armenian peers at an event hosted by the students, for the students.
While the primary goal of the event was to bring together Armenian students and local young professionals, regardless of their affiliations with other organizations, it was also an attempt to provide them with a chance to reconnect with their identity and heritage. After his night of learning the more traditional “shoorch bar” and dancing to the songs of contemporary Armenian pop stars like Armenchik and Tata, Rob Apelian from Tufts University said, “Growing up, I had minimal involvement with an Armenian community, so it was really fun to be around so many others who shared my culture.”
Planning for the event began two months prior, at a meeting attended by leaders of the BC, BU, MIT, Tufts, and Wellesley Armenian student groups. After deciding on a convenient date, they promptly created a flyer and Facebook event page. In an effort to spread the word, the organizers emailed their club members, tweeted about the event, and posted information to multiple Armenian Facebook groups. A week prior to the event, Shamirian and Knar Bedian of Tufts met to iron out the final details.
“It was great working together with all of the different organizations and seeing the event turn out to be such a success,” stated Bedian. “We’d like to thank the MIT Armenian Society for generously sponsoring and hosting this event.”
For student readers interested in starting or connecting with an Armenian students group at their school, e-mail armenianclubs.boston@gmail.com.