With the spring work load increasing exponentially right now, it is important to remember the importance of being involved in activities other than doing homework and sleeping. While many get involved in a thousand and one extracurricular activities to build up a college resume, being involved in things other than school is extremely important to creating a balanced and healthy life.
Many people decide their passions through the classes they take, but extracurricular activities can also provide a good insight into one’s interests, whether they are academic or not. Only being involved in school and academics isolates students and prohibits them from learning important lessons through experience.
Often times, the information we learn in a classroom is not as useful or remembered as the little lessons of teamwork, failure and retrying and finding what best interests you.
Team building activities, communication skills, and team work challenge students in ways that a single homework assignment cannot. While valuable study skills can help a student better succeed in post-high school education, the skills of team work and compromise students learn from youth groups, volunteering, and sports end up being more important after college than the isolated facts one learns in class.
Additionally, extracurricular activities provide a necessary break for students and can help to relieve stress from school work.
So as your spring becomes busier and you start to question whether it’s all worth it, remember that having a balance in your life is important. It might be easiest to just lock yourself in your room or drop activities because you just don’t want to do them, but these are just as, or arguably more, important as working toward that perfect 4.0 for your college resume. This busyness provides important opportunities for students to grow.