While college may be known for lecture halls and difficult exams, there is just as much learning happening outside of the classroom as inside. You enter college as a teenager and exit as an adult, so there must be something going on outside of math midterms and procrastinated essays.
As it turns out, college is all about making connections, throwing yourself into new settings, and finding opportunities you never could’ve imagined on your own. Much of that networking and growth does happen in lectures, study groups, and labs, much a better portion of it happens outside of that in extracurriculars.
That being said, extracurricular activities cover a wide range of topics. This can be anything from physical activity to art to volunteering in your community. That’s why we’re going to take the next few minutes to cover the most popular kinds of extracurricular activities and how they’ll help you make the most of your college experience!
Sports
If you were a scholar-athlete in high school, chances are that you’ll want to continue your time in a sport in college. Playing sports is a great extracurricular activity that will help you form relationships with other college students while developing teamwork, leadership, and time management skills, not to mention the student mental health benefits of consistently doing physical activity.
Once you’re in college, there are several levels of sports you can play: collegiate, club, or intramural. If you’re getting scouted by college coaches on your high school baseball team, great. You can sign on to play for a college, get some scholarship money, and play with teammates that will probably be your friends throughout college.
For everyone who doesn’t want to play a sport for their college, club and intramural sports are another great way to get involved. As far as club sports, you’ll have to go to tryouts, make the team, and then pay whatever membership dues are required for the team. This is a great way to still play competitively and form relationships with your team while not committing to a full-time school sport.
Intramural sports are more relaxed. Everyone participates in some healthy competition. This option is cheaper than club sports and has less of a time commitment while you still get to do something you love, and meet new people.
Greek Life
Greek life is a historically popular way to get involved in extracurricular activities. Greek life includes sororities and fraternities, which can social or professional sisterhoods and brotherhoods.
Greek life can be classified in a few different ways. There’s the National Panhellenic Conference with over two dozen women’s sororities across the nation and the Interfraternity Council for fraternities, though these are not the only leadership organizations. Greek life can also be based on shared race, ethnicity, or professional goals. For example, the National Pan-Hellenic Council is for historically Black fraternities and sororities.
Another Greek life is geared toward STEM majors, business majors, future healthcare professionals, and more. They’re a great way to network professionally while filling up your social calendar during the school year.
Internship
While college is all about learning about your field of study through college textbooks and labs, you can also benefit from getting hands-on experience. That’s where internships come in. Whether you’re an engineer or a communications major, there are internships available. Now, the types of internships might depend on where your college is located, but most colleges have networking channels to find them.
Working in an internship outside of the classroom will build your credibility as a professional, supplement what you learn in the classroom, and give you invaluable real-world experience. An internship is also a great way to test if you actually enjoy the field you’re studying, so you should give it a chance. Check out the list of internships for first-year college students, we hope you’ll find it helpful. When looking for an internship relevant to your education, check out architecture internships overview, psychology internships, nursing internships, art internships, medical internships for college students, and also platforms for internships and how to use them.
Performing Arts
Everyone needs a creative outlet, especially during college. When you’re first entering a university and have to adjust to a new environment, new people, and rigorous classes, you need a place to decompress. That’s where the performing arts come in.
Check out opportunities to get involved in performing arts on your college campus. There are plenty of clubs and organizations geared toward theater, dance, singing, and cultural performances. And if you don’t find one you like, you can make it!
If you’re afraid that spending time in a dance or acapella group won’t look good on a resume or grad school application, don’t! Committing to a group or activity, you’re passionate about shows your dedication, creativity, and individual growth. Plus, it’s a great way to meet people and enjoy college life outside of the classroom.
Volunteer Organizations
There’s nothing quite like helping others to make you feel more balanced, less stressed, and just happier in general. Colleges usually have on-campus clubs and organizations based on volunteering, whether it’s reading to elementary school children or working with the Red Cross to install smoke detectors.
These volunteer in college opportunities are a great way to spend time giving back to your community, forming relationships with like-minded people, and building character. Allotting time to focus on others will help you balance the everyday stress of college, where you’re mainly worried about yourself. Sometimes, taking a step away from the textbooks to help out someone else will help you more than you know.
Conclusion
To sum things up, college isn’t just about taking notes from textbooks and using proper MLA format when citing textbooks in your essays. Over the course of four years, you will learn tons of information about your field of study while maturing socially. This is a time of growth, and nothing will push you more than the extracurriculars you choose.
There’s an extracurricular activity for everyone. If you love writing, find an internship with a school or local magazine. If you love soccer, sign up for an intramural team. If you love organizing events and meeting people, join a fraternity or sorority. The point is that you find something you enjoy outside of your classes. If you get involved in extracurricular activities early on in college, it’ll make your experience that much more enriching and fun!
Besides participating in extracurricular activities, consider applying for a textbook scholarship program that offers BookScouter. This program provides financial assistance to college students who struggle to cover the costs of textbooks and other course materials. By taking advantage of this scholarship program, you can reduce the cost of your education and alleviate some of its financial stress.
