Getting Involved

By Student Blogger Sarah from South Korea

I am about to give you some not-so-subtle advice: become involved at school. What the“involvement” entails are extracurricular activities, sports, or any clubs you are willing to join.

You may have heard enough times already that American colleges truly take into account how much you were involved with at school besides academics. Other than what colleges look for, simply joining clubs is a great opportunity to make friends, to practice speaking English, and to expand your horizon. That being said, find what you love to do, and become a part of it.

Take my experience for instance: I love to interact with other people and act. My host mother and I thought about a club I could join at school that I would enjoy being a part of. Indeed, it was drama club! I auditioned for theater at the beginning of the school year, and later found out that surprisingly enough, I got one of the lead roles for the play “Our Town.”

I was extremely happy about it; however, the only problem was the amount of lines I had to memorize. The only way to overcome such issue was by repetition. It is like just like what people say “Repetition is the key to success.” After several practices and rehearsals, our show was ready to open.

We played two nights: the first night, not too many people attended, but the second night our theater was packed. To be quite honest, I did get a little nervous before I went on stage. However, when it happened, I tried to play it as cool as possible, which was surprisingly much easier to do than I thought.

Due to repetition of going over my lines, I thankfully did not mess up; hence, many people from the audience commended me afterwards. Out of all the compliments I’ve received, the most memorable one was from my director, who said he was amazed by how well I had done. I mean, who does not want to be praised by their director?

Over the long haul, I learned a lot, felt a lot, and performed a lot. It was well worth doing. Therefore, I recommend you find your passion as well.

You may still be wavering as to which club to join or confused as to what you really like to do. It may be hard to find, but in fact, it is extremely easy. We often go out of our way to try to find the things we love, not realizing that we are already doing them.

You do not have to be the captain of the varsity sports team or a lead in a play to have fun. Remember: all you are aiming for is self-improvement. It will surely benefit you if you were good at it; however, you never know what you are truly good at unless you try. So experiment with the clubs or sports at your school, and find what you love!