Extracurricular Activities to Join This Semester

By Kaitlin Hurtado on February 7, 2018

Now that you’re into the second semester of the academic school year, you probably have gotten the hang of your workload after a much-needed break. You’ve got your class schedule set for the semester, but you may also remember how much free time you had last semester, or how you felt like you weren’t as involved with campus life that you wanted or expected to be. While you may think the beginning of the academic year is the best time to join as clubs and extracurriculars put extra effort into recruitment, most clubs and/or extracurriculars accept new members all year.

A new semester is a new start, and the perfect opportunity to join an extracurricular that you’ve been eyeing for a semester or two. If you aren’t sure as to what your campus has to offer you, here are a few extracurricular activities to consider joining this semester.

via Pexels.com

A club for volunteer and community outreach

Many college students have had some kind of volunteering experience. It may have been mandatory for their high school, a scholarship application, or just something to add to their experience when preparing for college applications. As someone who volunteered in high school, the transition to college was around the time I stopped volunteering as with many other college students.

The reasons may vary. College coursework can quickly take over one’s schedule and rule out the opportunity to volunteer. Volunteering is no longer mandatory, so the will to volunteer is gone as well. Or as in my case, I simply didn’t know where to look for opportunities to volunteer away from home and my community.

There are plenty of clubs that are created for volunteering and community outreach to help you connect with volunteering opportunities. If you’re away from home from college, joining a club that specifically helps the community on campus and the surrounding community will enable you to get to know your new community better and help the community grow through your volunteering efforts from your extracurricular activity.

Your college newspaper (or other campus publications) 

Regardless of whether your major requires writing or not, being able to write and convey thoughts through words is important in every field you can pursue. An email to an important client, a written proposal for funding for a new project, or a job application down the road involved writing and your ability to write can make these activities relatively easy or daunting depending on how confident you are in your writing.

Joining your campus newspaper will allow you to work on your writing skills on an everyday basis and work closely with editors to help you do so. Seeing your name published and your work out in the world will only help your confidence in your writing grow, and also look good when it comes to showing what you were up to in college with concrete proof.

Being a part of the campus newspaper as an extracurricular activity will also allow you to stay up to date with different campus events as you cover them and also build a connection with different organizations on campus if you are continuously assigned to cover a specific organization or ongoing campus issue. Doing so will allow you to see what your campus offers you when it comes to extracurricular activities and just may lead you to another extracurricular activity.

soccer, men, playing soccer,

via Unsplash.com

An intramural sport

If you find yourself struggling to keep up with your New Years resolution to go to the gym more or stay fit and healthy in general, joining an intramural sport may be the perfect opportunity to get yourself back on track. Joining an intramural sport as your next extracurricular activity allows you to sneak in exercise and have fun while doing so.

You can continue doing a sport that you did as a child or through high school but stopped once you reached college for whatever reason. Or, take the opportunity to take up a new sport that you have always been interested in.

Intramural sports teams can be organized in a variety of ways. Different housing communities, like dorm halls, may make up their own teams to bond. Groups of friends can rally together to make their own teams. Complete strangers can all come together to make up a team. Either way, working closely with a group of people in an activity that requires extensive teamwork allows you to create bonds with other students.

If you already know they enjoy exercising or the sport you are participating in, you can ask a teammate or two to be your workout buddy to further encourage yourself to exercise more or make more friends through an extracurricular activity.

Joining an extracurricular activity on campus can be one of your most rewarding college experiences as it will lead you to various opportunities. Whether it’s the opportunity to connect on campus if you are a commuter or get something to add to your resume when it comes to post-grad applications, joining an extracurricular this semester is something you should consider.

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