Why Get Involved in High School?
While you might hear this like a broken record from teachers and administrators, getting involved in high school really does have benefits. Here are some important and beneficial reasons to join a club, sport, or activity in your high school years.
- Making new friends: Joining an extracurricular in high school is an easy way to meet new people and to make new friends. Seeing these people once, twice, or three times a week is a great way to build relationships. As a bonus, these people have the same interests as you!
- Trying something new: Getting out of your comfort zone may seem scary, but it can actually help you discover something that you didn’t know before. You might learn you actually love art, when you thought you were a bad artist or you might be a great soccer player, when you thought you had bad coordination skills.
- Learning about yourself: Getting involved in different activities can help you find what your interests and things you are not interested in. This will help prepare you for college and your future in choosing a major or future job.
- (Athletics) Staying active: Playing a sport is a fun way to stay healthy and active, while being able to socialize with others and make new friends.
- Learn new talents/improve talents: Along with learning about yourself, you can learn new talents or improve your old ones. Joining tennis might help you improve your hand eye coordination, or joining drama might teach you different acting skills.
- (Volunteering) Helping others: Many schools offer volunteer-based clubs like National Honor Society. Volunteering is really cool because to know you did something for someone else who maybe could not do it fulfills you.
- Improving social/interaction skills: In any club or sport, you must communicate with others. Joining an extracurricular is a great way to improve social skills or to learn new ones.
- Practicing time management skills: Being in an activity forces you to practice good time management. This will help prepare you for college and the future when you have to balance multiple things at the same time. Only having a certain amount of time for homework allows for more focus and less procrastination. If you feel you waste a lot of your time procrastinating, channel your time and energy into something else productive, if not homework.
- Becoming involved: Sure, joining a club makes you involved in the school, but being in a club will add to your label as a student. You might add student athlete or chorus member to your legacy at the school.
- Showing school spirit: A great way to show spirit and pride for your school is to represent it by joining a club or sport. When you join a school activity, you become an ambassador for your school and get to show your school pride to everyone you interact with. Be proud to represent your school and use your activity to show other students and teachers what your school is really about.
