Allison Contois
Outreach Activities
Here you can find details about extra-curricular activities I participated in during my time at Clemson University.
K-Clemson
From its founding in Fall of 2022 to Fall of 2025, I participated as a member of K-Clemson. K-Clemson is a Clemson University student-led club themed around K-Pop. The club includes both social activities, such as Halloween events, as well as dance activities. In the dance portion of the club, I learned to work together with my club members to learn choreography and manage formation changes. This improved my cooperation skills, as well as my ability to think flexibly. At the end of the semester, those in the dance portion of the club perform in a Showcase, including the choreography encompassing all the members and smaller groups consisting of solos, duos, and groups of 3-9 members. Additionally, from Fall of 2022 to the end of the Spring 2023 semester, I served on the executive board as Secretary. As secretary, I took notes during executive board meetings, sent emails reminding members of important news and events, and communicated with other Clemson University clubs.
Clemson University Japanese Speech Contest
In both the spring semester of 2022 and the spring semester of 2025, I competed in Clemson University's Japanese Speech Contest. All students in each Japanese language course prepares a speech and presents it in from of their teacher and classmates. Then, a couple representatives are chosen in each class to compete in the University-wide speech contest. I was chosen as representative in spring 2022 and spring 2025. With the help of my professors, I fixed grammatical errors and mispronunciations in my speech. For the spring 2025 contest, students from my class memorized out speeches and practiced together with our professor. This helped me learn not only to memorize and present speeches in Japanese but also pay attention to my pronunciation and intonation. During the speech contest, each student stands in front of students from every Japanese language class, all of the Japanese professors, and volunteers to judge the contest. After each student gives their speech, the volunteers ask the student questions in Japanese and the student must answer them in Japanese to the best of their ability. While it was nerve-wracking, the experience gave me a chance to practice responding quickly and naturally to questions. In Spring 2025, I was surprised and honored to win first place in the speech contest.
Bon Odori Festival
In the Summer of 2023, I volunteered at the Japan-America Association of South Carolina (JAASC) Bon Odori Festival. This festival showcased many aspects of Japanese culture and the Bon Odori festivals that take place in Japan. Many booths sold Japanese goods, such as yukata and festival masks. There were also many game booths hosting games that are often found at festivals in Japan. Before the opening of the festival to the public, I helped set up tables and move boxes of books onto tables that were to be given out to attendees. Once the festival began, I worked at one of the game booths, specifically the ring toss and mini golf booth. I collected festival-goer's tickets and explained the rules of each game to them. As they played, I would watch to count their score and then direct them to whichever prize selection they qualified for. Additionally, I had the opportunity to practice my speaking skills. Some of the younger children did not speak English conversationally yet, so I did my best to explain the game and give encouragement in Japanese. This was a challenge, both in working to understand children's pronunciation of words in my second language, as well as choosing words that would make sense to toddlers.