Some individuals are of the opinion that university students benefit from joining clubs, while others consider it a waste of time. In my opinion, although participation in clubs encroaches upon personal time, I agree with the former view because university clubs offer several valuable experiences for students’ future lives.
On the one hand, clubs can distract university students from studying their main courses. Each course contains a great amount of complex theoretical knowledge that they have to absorb, requiring time for memorization and comprehensive understanding to apply it in their future careers . Excessive focus on these extracurricular activities,along with an inability to balance club commitments and coursework will negatively affect their academic performance, resulting in low GPAs, which can be a downpoint in their CV. Balancing this means that they have to spend less time resting and sleeping, leading to some health problems such as stress, anxiety, which may impact both the quality of extracurricular and academic activities. Getting several club certificates at the expense of inadequate information of their specialised subjects and poor health is not worthy at all.
On the other hand, these extracurricular activities create numerous opportunities for college students to foster personal development. In university, clubs vary from academic, recreational to voluntary ones, and students can take part in any clubs aligned with their needs and interests. Being a club member enables them to meet people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, thereby creating a great chance to broaden perspectives, gain cultural insight and build social networks. This assists college students in forming a good mindset to impress the employers in the future. Moreover, clubs offer numerous vital life skills such as leadership, teamwork, critical thinking and skills necessary for their future job as members have to collaborate on various types of tasks. This equips students with the credentials they need for their career, which secure internships earlier or enhance employment prospects compared to those who do not join any clubs.
From my perspective, college students should take part in extracurricular activities to develop themselves to the full and get useful knowledge for the courses they are taking as well as their occupation in the future. However, they have to manage time effectively in order to still grasp all essential concepts in curricular lectures and have enough time to rest so that they can ensure optimal performance in both academic and extracurricular pursuits. This contributes to a more fulfilling and memorable university life.
In conclusion, joining clubs may take much time for college students and negatively impact them but they are not a waste of time at all. I believe that with proper time allocation, university students can fully understand all concepts in the curriculum and apply it to their professional lives while having a good time engaging in their favourite extracurricular activities.