High school students and extracurricular activities

A high school student after a full day of classes head back home and tends to relax a bit before taking time for dinner and get back to homework. The debate heating up these days is whether this is the best a high school student can do or should they really be doing more than that?

There are assorted numbers of research carried out on high school students suggesting that students indulge in extracurricular activities have a tendency to perform tremendously at numerous of places than their peers. It is traditionally believed that allowing students to involve themselves in extracurricular activities, most likely result in falling academic grades; however as per the recent studies the result is somewhat opposite. Most of these research studies highlight that students who involve themselves in extracurricular activities tend to show a higher level of academic results than their peers and that is not all.

There was a research published in Education according to which student’s involvement in those activities goes well past just satisfying their already busy schedule. The involvement of high school students in these activities can add another dimension for their college application. Moreover, there are various advantages of being involved in extracurricular activities such as developing a sense of belonging, enhancing personal pride, the prevention of substance abuse and much more. In addition to these, the study further states that repeated records of high school have shown that extracurricular activities allow students to refrain from indulging in felony and other unlawful activities.

Similarly, there are other benefits of indulging in extracurricular activities like grooming personal skills that come in handy in everyday life. The same point was echoed by Melinda Voss, the Public Relations Director for the Minnesota State College and Universities System. According to Voss, extracurricular activities allow students to polish their personal skills such as enhancing leadership skills and time management skills. The enhancement of these skills can make way for developing interest and lead them to decide careers that they want to peruse after high school.

There are numerous concerns among high school students and one of such concern is how their involvement in extracurricular activities can significantly impact on their college application. These high students can mitigate their concern by viewing that their involvement in these activities highlights college official that they are well-balanced individuals. However, they need to keep one thing in mind that they should not be involved in these activities just to impress college official and pad up their college application which totally takes away the essence of extracurricular activities.

That being said, highly prestigious and selective colleges and universities like Harvard emphasizes a great deal on extracurricular activities of students; thus their involvement in these activities can be of paramount importance. Therefore; parents, as well as teachers, are responsible for encouraging teens to get themselves involved in extracurricular activities not just to pad up their application but for the own personal development. Moreover, parents and teachers can just encourage, the responsibility to take initiative lies with the students.