How do extra-curricular activities help?

Being a student in this tumultuous city of Dhaka, I can easily understand the competition among the students of hundreds of schools and colleges. These competitions often pertain to studying, getting a chance at a renowned university, and being the topper. However, the ‘extra-curricular activities’ are some works that can bring a visible change to your student life; these make you unique from others and can change your life versatilely.

Now, what are the extra-curricular activities that can be done?

Any activity not directly related to your academic studies is called an extra-curricular activity. Singing, dancing, writing books or stories, reciting, learning new languages, debating, volunteering, editing videos, public speaking, and sports are some of the mentionable extra-curricular activities. But of course, all activities outside academics are not extra-curricular work. For instance, taking good care of your hair or talking to your friend for hours does not secure a place in the list of extra-curricular activities.

Why are extra-curricular activities important and why should you do those?

There are a number of reasons why!

·Cultivation of leadership qualities:

Extra-curricular activities will give birth to different leadership qualities inside you, for your involvement in many extracurricular activities will let you come in contact with diverse people. Many people will have different perspectives and mixing with them will definitely help you grow. You will then have qualities like cooperation, solidarity, networking, affability, sociability, obeying a leader, fluent communication, etc.

·Study abroad:

You will be content to know that these activities will help you while applying abroad. Probably some of you are already aware that the top colleges of the world give substantial attention to extracurricular activities. Moreover, if you are quite active and skilled in any extracurricular activity, you can lead the club at your college!

·Improvement in academics:

Students who remain involved in different extra-curricular activities usually learn better time management and essential life skills. So, they can show better performance in academics as well. Besides, they get more practical experience outside the classroom which helps them in the long run.

·Better Mental Health:

 Students who take part in some extra-curricular activities tend to have better mental health conditions. Mostly they remain cheerful and are away from depression and anxiety.

·Knowing about yourself:

A person can learn about his interests by doing different extra-curricular activities. Moreover, it helps build a better self-esteem and teaches one to become self-sufficient. It also motivates children to achieve.

·Building a better CV:

Your passion can lead you to a better CV. You can mention the activities in your CV. This will surely let you have a better impression of others.

Some tips regarding the extra-curricular
activities:

Probably, after coming to know about its advantages you have already gone to various search engines and presumably you are now searching where to go, what to do for increasing your extras. But always remember one thing, whichever activity you are into, don’t do it only because you want to use it in your applications and CVs. Rather, love that activity and perform that because you get pleasure by doing so and be attentive about it. Don’t only attend the classes only to say that you have that extra activity in your list whereas you don’t have much knowledge about it. Always show your dedication towards the activity; that will, without any doubt, help you in the long run.

Some Misconceptions:

Indeed, the extra-curricular activities help you in many different ways. But never forget that without academic excellence, nothing will be of any use. It is known, when academic excellence is the ‘1’, the other activities are the zeroes at the right side of the ‘one’. Then, the more extra-curricular activities you do, the more you can learn. But think, what if the ‘1’ is not present at the beginning? Thousands of zeroes can’t even augment the value then. In total, always give importance to your academic activities at the first place. Many students sometimes get so much involved in the extras that they don’t give much importance to their ‘one’. This eventually results in their downfall.

In sum, the extra-curricular activities are some activities doing which in the high schools will save you from regretting later. These are some activities that deserve the second place in your student life, after academics.

So, pay heed to those and try your level best to enrich the bucket of your extra-curricular activities!