At the event she had access to multiple arts organizations manning tables and vying for her attention, which is the goal of the event, advertising junior and president of the Wharton Center Student Marketing Organization, Madison Stapels said.

“We have a lot of a capella groups that are very involved on campus, super talented," Stapels said. "We have the arts and cultural management minor. We have TEDxMSU, UAB, Impact. We try and get a wide variety of different aspects of the arts groups — from performing to managing, music, art, fine arts and performing arts — and kind of get a wide variety of things that people may be interested in to get the most amount of people to the event.”

Broussard said she loves the arts, so having the chance to join all these organizations was a good opportunity for her.

“I like writing, I like listening to poetry, I like watching dance and acting, I love acting actually, not acting but watching acting,” Broussard said. “I really like Broadway type acting. I wish I was better at it. I enjoy experiencing it.”

As a neuroscience major, she said some people might be surprised that she is so into the arts. Broussard said it was definitely possible to like both science and art and that CreativeCollaboration was a good place for people like herself.

“I’m multidimensional, I guess — I’m interested in various things,” she said. “I appreciate art just as much as I appreciate science and I think this is a good place to be if you’re that kind of person.”

Potentially meeting friends was important as well, because as a freshman on MSU’s campus, it can be hard to find people sometimes, she said.

“It’s actually been kind of, despite the size or maybe because of the size, it’s been kind of hard,” Broussard said. “It’s like there’s so many people but it’s still lonely in a way. I’m still working on that.”

Sometimes the sheer size of a university can be overwhelming for freshman and make it harder for them to make friends. MSU, with more than 39,000 undergraduates alone in fall 2015, can be intimidating for some students.

That’s why it’s important to have events like CreativeCollaboration, professional writing junior Jay Hull said. Hull, secretary and social media person for the MSU Slam Poetry Team, represented their organization at the event. She said there’re lots of people to meet at MSU, but not necessarily to connect with.

“It’s not hard to meet people who could be friends because you’re constantly pushed to go to these events and go to all these things when you’re living on campus,” Hull said. “It’s harder to find people that you can really interact with and really click with.”

Stapels said for some students at MSU who don’t necessarily like mainstream college things, their groups can be left in the dust.

“I think at such a big university something that kind of gets lost are the arts,” she said. “Especially going to a Big Ten school, sports tend to be the main focus.”

At CreativeCollaboration, about 30 arts-related student groups were available to the students who attended, Stapels said. The groups are given the chance to register beforehand and demonstrate their group’s particular art in a time slot of either five, 10 or 15 minutes. Stapels said all of this is done to help students see what MSU has to offer in regard to the arts.

“We want them to take away that there are so many different arts organizations on campus and that it’s so easy to be involved and to make new friends and get acquainted with the campus and get immersed into campus culture, and that they’re not just a tiny fish in a big pond,” she said. “There are people that they fit in with that, want to meet them and want them to get involved with what they’re doing.”

Psychology freshman Timothy Thomas saidwhen he was trying to get involved, he looked for a group that could bridge the gap between creativity and emotion for him. That’s how he ended up in the MSU Poetry Slam Team along with Hull. He said that the key for success for freshmen to make friends was to just go out and do things.

“I say go out just in general because no matter where you go, you’re going to encounter people and you’re going to meet people,” Thomas said. “Not saying that everybody you meet is going to be your friend, but it increases the likelihood considering everybody you meet, you’re going to have some sort of contact with.”