Extracurricular Activities.

Raccoon Love

Raccoon Love

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INFP
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What is your opinion on extracurricular activities? should they be made mandatory?

Throughout my entire High School years, extracurricular activities have been heavily emphasized. In fact, we are by graduation requirements to complete 75 hours of community service. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to help my community. What gets me mad is that the school board does not put themselves in the students shoes. I was responsible daily to come home and take care of my little sister, this left me very little time.

Colleges now a days look like crazy for this though, they consider this to be a representation of the students social activity which also include clubs.

Where you involved in this activities as a child? Do you believe they had an impact on your future? Do you believe academics should be separated from this when colleges and other institutions admit certain students?
 
i think extracurricular activities should be encouraged, but not necessarily required unless it's a part of the regular school schedule so that it doesn't interfere with other responsibilities or obligations students may have to family, etc. I prefer clubs to community service since they are based on development of individual interests than completing community service simply to hedge a college application.
 
Extracurricular activities are mandated on the assumption that students do not already have plenty of things to do outside of school hours. It's less common nowadays for children to have responsibilities like farm duties and caring for siblings, but they are still around in many cases. There should at least be an opt-out of some kind.
 
In grade school, I played for the soccer and basketball teams, but when Jr. High/Middle School came up, I lost interest in sports (and pretty much everything else, grr depression). There'd be some days where I went to school, came home and sat on my bum until bedtime, and other days where I was out paling around with my friends or helping a family member with some project. I was very uninvolved with a lot of things for three years, and I regret that. Then, I entered high school, where, somewhat like Raccoon Love's school, they required each student to complete 50 hours of community service per semester, 30 hours of an Internship per year, and another 50 hours of "Family Teamwork," where basically we were supposed to do chores without the allowance. In Junior and Senior year, we had the option to do a Junior and Senior project, which would cut the hours required down to 35, 30, and 35, respectively. It was a pain at first, but I'm grateful that someone made me get out and see what there is in the world around me. That's not including the work I did with Student Council and National Honors Society, which was counted separately from the mandatory service hours the student body had to fulfill.

Now, do I think those hours have impacted me positively thus far? In a word: yes. In three words: yes, yes, yes! In addition to the scholarships provided by the organizations, the hours and the activities themselves helped me in winning college-provided and private scholarships (some of which I owe to my academic marks that allowed me to apply for said scholarships). I also met a lot of great people in my activities, many of which were more than happy to be references on my job applications. I enjoyed the work so much that I even continued working in the community long after I fulfilled my yearly requirements (my school didn't play roll over with the hours, so I couldn't attribute more than fifty per semester and have them amount to anything more than the base fifty or have them count toward the next semester).

However, all that being said, I do not support the idea that community service should be a mandatory part of education. If students want to go out and make a difference and help out in the community, great! If they don't, then that's less competition for me in terms of scholarships :m027:.

Do you believe academics should be separated from this when colleges and other institutions admit certain students?
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This question is quite ambiguous XD what do you mean by "certain students"? As to the separation thing, I haven't really seen anything (other than sports) holding much weight in the admittance of students. Elite schools probably care about one's extracurrics, but all of the larger public universities, and any class of school that fit within Tier 2 and 3 of higher education, that I've applied to haven't cared about what kind of extracurriculars prospective students have on their record. However, scholarships are a different ball game :) I think that colleges should consider much more than a student's GPA when it comes to handling scholarship awards (not being on any scholarship boards myself, I can't say whether applicants are anything more than a GPA to the judges). It's bad enough my admittance to school is all based on numbers; I'd hate for any possibility of receiving financial assistance to be on the balance of the thousandths place of my GPA :m142:
 
Raccoon Love said:
Throughout my entire High School years, extracurricular activities have been heavily emphasized. In fact, we are by graduation requirements to complete 75 hours of community service. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to help my community. What gets me mad is that the school board does not put themselves in the students shoes. I was responsible daily to come home and take care of my little sister, this left me very little time.
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Put "looking after your sister" down as "community service". Problem solved. :wink:

(Seriously though, if you were volunteering to look after someone's else's kid for free to help their parents out, that would easily qualify as a service towards the community. So why should it be different just because she's your sister?).



As for the original question of the thread: Seeing as I think most (if not all) of the curriculum should be made non-mandatory....
 
I think extra curricular activities are sort of used as a way to sort of gauge one's personality without knowing them.


This applies to med school applicants, etc.. etc...

I'm going to try and explain my reasoning behind this. It may come out incredibly disjointed.

The more involved you are with your community the less likely you're to be a closet sociopath
or something risqu
 
Bird said:
I think extra curricular activities are sort of used as a way to sort of gauge one's personality without knowing them.


This applies to med school applicants, etc.. etc...

I'm going to try and explain my reasoning behind this. It may come out incredibly disjointed.

The more involved you are with your community the less likely you're to be a closet sociopath
or something risqu
Click to expand...
 
Determined to make myself take up Archery. We'll see how it goes...
 
I was in a Literary Magazine for 2 years of high school. I volunteered for 300 hours of service at a local animal shelter. Today I work at one of the country's largest animal sanctuaries and am in the midst of writing a book. Saying I'm doing these things because of high school would be putting the cart before the horse; I would have done them regardless of high school.

That's the problem with mandatory extracurricular activities - they force people to have an interest, regardless of whether or not they do. It looks good for the school if x% of their kids go to "So and So" universities. I sincerely doubt they do it primarily for the student's benefit though.
 
Bird said:
I think extra curricular activities are sort of used as a way to sort of gauge one's personality without knowing them.


This applies to med school applicants, etc.. etc...

I'm going to try and explain my reasoning behind this. It may come out incredibly disjointed.

The more involved you are with your community the less likely you're to be a closet sociopath
or something risqu
Click to expand...
 
efromm said:
You know the uni bomber was very well educated. A lot of killers are...
Click to expand...


I totally love Ted Kaczynki, I know all about him.
He was a very dedicated, passionate man.
I do not agree with some of his economic ideals however.
 
Melkor said:
Determined to make myself take up Archery. We'll see how it goes...
Click to expand...

WE GONNA DIE!

Yeah, I don't think extracurricular activities should be mandatory. I enjoyed being in a club or two in high school, but I'm pretty sure I would've resented it if I were required. Getting an education is community service in itself.
 
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Bird said:
I totally love Ted Kaczynki, I know all about him.
He was a very dedicated, passionate man.
I do not agree with some of his economic ideals however.
Click to expand...

He is a very interesting guy. I am glad I was not one of his victims. lol.. It would be interesting to talk to him...
 
efromm said:
He is a very interesting guy. I am glad I was not one of his victims. lol.. It would be interesting to talk to him...
Click to expand...


It would be most interesting, I agree (:
 
Extracurricular activities show a dedication and passion.

Passion is what gets you places in life, either good or bad.

healthy passions typically underlie healthy extracurricular activities.
 
NeverAmI said:
Extracurricular activities show a dedication and passion.

Passion is what gets you places in life, either good or bad.

healthy passions typically underlie healthy extracurricular activities.
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I guess my passions were bad because everything I love to do is illegal now lol..
 
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