NUAMES and traditional college students gathered in the D3 ballroom this past Monday night to belt out lyrics to a range of songs, singing anything from LMFAO’s collection to J-POP.
This event was the Davis campus’ karaoke night, an activity coordinated by Jessica Cairo of the student programming board.
Cairo, a sophomore majoring in medical laboratory sciences, aimed for 30 attendees, but ended the night with almost 40. She estimated about 25 of those were NUAMES students.
“We’re actually starting a karaoke club. So this was kind of to help recruit for that,” Cairo said.
Twenty people signed up that night for the karaoke club, the first club to be hosted at the Davis campus.
Cairo has a passion for karaoke, which spawned the idea for this event.
“I love singing and performing. I’m the one who drives out to Salt Lake to those karaoke places,” she said.
The coordinator admitted the idea actually started out as a joke, but then the programming board suggested following through on the idea.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a good singer or a bad singer. You can just go up and have fun,” Cairo said.
Clint Morse, a freshman in computer science, was glad he attended the event.
“True props have to be given to the people who stepped up the action to try to provide stuff for everybody,” Morse said.
He has also been an attendee at past Davis campus events, such as game night.
Morse doesn’t personally mind having so many NUAMES kids at these events, but it’s strange for him.
“They do remind me a lot of my high school days, which were some of my best,” Morse said. “I feel like I was one of the only regular college students who went, though.”
NUAMES sophomore class president Trevor May, didn’t let the presence of college kids stop him from attending.
“There were a few college kids, but even the college kids were just singing,” May said.
May sung Mackelmore’s “Can’t Hold Us,” among other songs.
Brenden Brooks, another NUAMES sophomore, was satisfied with the event, except for one thing.
“I really like how well-executed it was, but there was a severe lack of people,” Brooks said.
Cairo addressed this by admitting this attendee turnout is to be expected on the Davis campus.
“We don’t usually have that many people come out to Davis campus because we are smaller. Most of our patrons are NUAMES students,” she said, adding that some students may have been unable to attend due to night classes.
Another NUAMES student, Christine Burggraaf, came to the event because of her love for performing arts.
“I love it!” Burggraaf said. “I have autism, so normally it’s hard for me to be very social with people, but when I’m doing things I love, it makes me more socially involved.”
Burggraaf sang songs such as LMFAO’s “La La La” and Japanese pop songs.
“I think we should have more events like this in the future,” Burggraaf said. “It’s great for someone trying to gain experience about what performing is like.”
Similarly, Cairo said it’s an event she would like to see again.
