There are safety in numbers if all the numbers are cooperating. If you are a student then you probably don't need to worry overly much about a wife or kids. Get yourself involved in whatever group you can that will be focused on surviving whatever disasters you might be preparing for. You can choose from many public / civic minded organizations that will be attempting to help others during a disaster / emergency or you might easily find a band of true "survivalists" and there find an isolationist group with truely significant preparedness. When / If the SHTF, these isolationist Survivalist groups will be sitting pretty telling the rest of us "I told you so" as they defend their cache with the best armament they could procure. Whatever you choose remember that participation within a group requires a certain conformity of philosophy. As for me and mine I am choosing to participate with the civic minded organizations. My state doesn't have any CERT programs yet but I am working on that. My approach is to bet HAM, EMT certified (attained) volunteer for the local EMS which is volunteer and then start to lobby for the formation of CERT programs. Unfortunately I became civic minded after my 35 birthday so the NG and AR units are not interested in my aged contributions.