It’s summertime and you’ve had a big year at High School. You probably want to take a break from academia and thinking about what skillsets you need to develop for that all important college application, but don’t waste your holidays relaxing at the beach, balance this with some extra curricular activities!
“Why is this important?” I hear you asking, well, having a big chunk of time to hone and develop different key strengths and skills will not only benefit you in improving your communication skills, but it can lead to new opportunities such as internships, job offers or even having a brand new set of friends!
You could join a local community group such as a beach clean-up or litter-picking team to help improve our environment, or any other kind of volunteering related to your interests. This will likely be free and you can feel really good knowing that you’ve done something great to help others. For other benefits of volunteering as a high school student see here.
If you wanted to join a program just for the summer, and had a bit of cash to put towards it, then a summer program like The Columbia Climate School in the Green Mountains. This is a two-week immersion into climate-change prevention and action research at Columbia. It’s for 9th-12th graders and costs upwards of $6000. If a more structured academic format is more your thing and you wanted to learn from the comfort of your own home, then Columbia also offers a full immersion pre-college program for two weeks throughout the summer. These courses are competitive, so you might want something a bit more relaxed.
Even something as simple as starting a new passion project, such as writing a book, starting a blog, or creating works of art over the summer can show that you are expanding your creative and artistic abilities and that you are curious and interested in different things. Creative writing or any kind of artistic endeavour is proven to improve our brain health and have a protective effect against degenerative diseases such as dementia.
We know that extracurriculars are even more important now in the application process to college, in fact, it would not be possible to get into University in the US or UK without proof of these nowadays. So, it is important that your enthusiasm and abilities to be innovative or think outside of the box are exemplified in your application, therefore, doing extracurriculars which you genuinely LOVE is the way forward!
An example of this for me was my time doing speech and drama as an extracurricular not just in the summer, but for many years. I learned how to work with others, memorize scripts, develop strong communication skills and make lifelong friends from attending Speech and Drama Club. This helped so much with my confidence at University interviews, giving presentations, and making new friends and networking.
Whatever you choose to do over the summer, spend your time wisely at the same time as having fun, this way, you are consistently building towards becoming a multi-skilled diverse individual who stands out from the rest of the crowd. It will shape your future and who you want to become, plus give you an insight into the type of career you want and what excites you in life.
And there you have it, lots of different ideas on how to spend your summer and the benefits of extracurricular activities. If you want to explore further enrichment opportunities then check out Summerapply! Happy holidays!
