Before even being a university student, as a high schooler, you need to participate in an extracurricular activity to help you with your college application. Choosing how to spend your free time could and will shape your future. And remember, there are no negatives of extracurricular activities.

How to Choose My Extracurricular Activity?

The best extracurricular activity for you is the one that uses your strongest talents to impact a great value to other people. If you’re having a hard time deciding on what do you want to go for, here’re some tips:

List your interests in a piece of paper and try to mark the Can Dos from the Love Dos ones. Not everything you’re good at must be a passion and sometimes your talents won’t match the things you’re passionate about doing.

Research each of them and find out what kind of extracurricular activities are bound to them. Look up the extracurricular activities that your university offers.

Narrow your list depending on your findings and the most appealing activities, clubs, and communities.

Choose the one with the biggest impact and the most beneficiary to other people and/or to your future carer goals.

What Are the Benefits of Extracurricular Activities?

The value of extracurricular activities not only lies in developing your talents and passions, but also in boosting your interpersonal and leadership skills. Some of the facts about extracurricular activities are introducing you to new friends with the same interests and passion and their importance for your future job applications and personal statement. Employers mostly take into consideration these 3 factors: leadership, passion, and impact.

Some of the most popular university extracurricular activities examples are academic clubs, academic competitive teams, arts, culture and language. community, leadership, media, music, performance art, religious, social activism, special interests, speech and politics, sports, technology and volunteering.

Any hobby, talent, or passion could become an extracurricular activity. If none of the above matches with the activity in mind, remember that you can always create your own extracurricular activity as long as it is not self-centred and has a valuable impact.

Studying in the UK? 

The 2018 Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey concluded that Loughborough University tops this list and the University of Leeds comes second.

The rest of the top 10 are University of Sheffield, Newcastle University, University of Bath, Harper Adams University, University of East Anglia, University of Exeter, Cardiff University, and the University of Nottingham.

Studying in Australia?

The University of Sydney, University of Adelaide, The University of Queensland in Brisbane, and the University of Melbourne are at the top when it comes to great extracurricular activities in Australia.