The clubs are definitely advertising and trying to find new people.

What people don't know is how good this stuff is, that they can actually get it done in parallel to the classes and how rewarding and educational it is.

This is definitely something where kids with parents who went to uni have a benefit, since they will know more about how to navigate the system and about things like this.

I didn't have this benefit, my parents never went to uni, but we had a lot of books and dad taught me to poke at everything :)

True. But it's even more difficult to participate if you don't go. Even my fractionally-aware stumble through the resources available at the universities I went to opened up doors that I didn't even know existed.

In recent years it has gotten a lot more obvious how massive the network effect is for undergrads. Anyone in stem knows to get research experience, and to bombard every professor's email in the department for a position, no matter what career they might end up with.

In fact, at my uni there is fear that going online will result in students deferring for a year, since undergraduate surveys are overwhelmingly in favor of in person class, to the point of not paying tuition for online offerings and extending their degree plan as a result.

Most of those sound like things that would usually be mentioned during Freshman orientation, so even if students don't know about all of them, they should be aware that those kinds of opportunities exist.

They show these kind of things in freshman's week don't they?

If you pursue a non-software-engineering major, you will at the very least be forced to use expensive equipment in a required lab class.