adventures of a typical high school student

Playing a sport and partaking in other “typical” high school pastimes can be fun, but is there some other advantage to participating in extracurriculars? The short answer is yes: if you want to find out why, keep on reading.

In elementary school and middle school, I was never deeply involved in anything outside of school. I did lots of after-school enrichment classes and dabbled in sports as well as dance and gymnastics, but nothing ever stuck. Once the session my mom had signed me up for ended, I wouldn’t ask to continue. That all changed at the end of middle school/going into high school; once I realized all of my friends had at least one activity they were passionate about outside of the normal school routine, I knew it was time for me to find my own hobbies.

If you’re a late bloomer with exploring your interests like I was, that’s perfectly fine! Better late than never, and there’s still plenty of time to find something you enjoy. Before you get started, here’s a few reasons why it’s so important that you participate in these types of activities.

• They relieve stress and provide an escape from schoolwork. We all know how busy life gets, and having an activity to look forward to can keep you motivated and make it easier to go through the school day. Do what you love, and it will bring joy into your day.
• It’s important for college admissions down the line. Colleges want to see that you care about things outside of school and have taken initiative to pursue these interests. Get involved for the right reasons (not just to put another activity on your application) but still keep in mind that this is a way your extracurriculars can reward you in the long run.
• You can input your extracurricular activities into RaiseMe to earn scholarship money for college. The more activities you have, the more earnings you can potentially get! Make sure to update your RaiseMe profile whenever you start something new- colleges love to see that you’re immersing yourself in different things, as I stated previously.
• Activities can connect you with people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. Joining clubs or playing sports is a great way to meet new people and make friends. The more of a commitment an activity is, the more of a tight-knit group it will be (usually). If you’re spending a lot of time with a group of people that share the same interests as you, you’re bound to make fast friends.
• You learn soft skills such as communication from extracurricular activities since you’re collaborating with other people in a new way. Depending on the activity, there are numerous skills you can gain and different ways you can be pushed out of your comfort zone. If you join debate, you’ll improve your public speaking; if you join a sport, you’ll improve your teamwork skills. 
• The activities you participate in now can lead to an interest you’ll want to study in college or a potential career when you’re older. Using debate as an example again, you may discover you want to study law. If you do an internship, you may fall in love with that career field. Trying something new can open your eyes to something you never thought you would be interested in before.
• They enrich your high school experience overall and will give you fond memories to look back on. Everyone experiences the ups and downs of high school, but it’s up to you to make the most out of it. Partaking in extracurriculars will make you a more well-rounded student and teach you life skills that you can’t learn inside a classroom.

I hope this makes the significance of extracurriculars a lot clearer. Regardless of the various benefits I listed, the most important component of an extracurricular is that you enjoy it. Life is too short to spend time doing something you don’t like, so keep digging until you find an activity you’re passionate about. Once you do, the sky’s the limit!

**This article was written as part of my RaiseMe internship. I am currently awaiting approval, but I hope they will be using it in some way on their site/as part of their platform. If you want to find out more about my internship or RaiseMe and what they do, I posted about it in early October when I found out I was accepted to their internship program.

-Brooke