Your time in college is fleeting and it’s unlikely you’ll spend your entire time participating in one club. Your extracurriculars will probably change as you explore, learn, experience, and advance through the semesters.
To determine what is the right path for you at this current moment, I’ve created this short assessment to help you make the most of your time. It’s best to take this assessment during the planning process of each semester.
What year & semester am I beginning:
How much time do I want to dedicate:
What is my past participation experience:
What am I missing from my college experience:
(highlight one or more)
Catering to your College Experience
Carve out some time to visit the official list of student organizations on your school’s website and take note of all the clubs that align with your goals. You could find the perfect club that aligns with all the things you’re hoping to achieve with your free time, but most likely you’ll need to prioritize.
For example, if you’re studying beyond full time for your major and are short on time (under 5 hours per a week to dedicate), but have both “advancing skills” and “leisure” highlighted, it may be best for your health to prioritize leisure.
What do you like to do for fun? Or what do you think you would like to do for fun? There are many leisurely stress-free clubs to escape the textbooks and study sessions. If you’re into video games, your school could have clubs for any type of game from Battle Royals to RPGs. Or maybe you’d like to get into crafting and join a weekly knitting circle or try your hand with pottery in a ceramic circle. If crafting isn’t for you, maybe you’ve been inspired by TikTok to take up roller skating or skateboarding and would just like to hang out with some other cool people while you practice.
While it may not be wise to join a skill-building club if you’re low on time, it’s always a great idea to join a leisure club if you have the extra time to spare. That’s even if you’re a member of another club. Leisure clubs are typically low-responsibility and are optional to attend promising only a good time and little mental stress.
In our same example, if you have a much larger time to dedicate to extracurricular activities (10 hours per week), you could find a club to build your skills. If you’re studying computer science, you could join a coders club and build small applications as a team to add to your online portfolio. Or if you’re wanting to improve your public speaking skills, Toastmasters is a club to practice in a judgment-free zone and obtain valuable critical feedback. While both clubs and other skill growth clubs may only meet up for a few hours a week, these clubs require members to do a lot of independent work.
It might seem obvious that different clubs and different positions require different levels of time allocation and responsibility, but it’s quite normal for students to forget to take these considerations into account.
Let’s further discuss the range of accountability for different roles and organizations.
Time Commitment & Accountability
Members
Being a member of a general club requires the least amount of time commitment. You’ll typically be invited to several types of meetings or fun events but it will never be mandatory to attend.
You’ll likely spend anywhere from 1 – 5 hours participating in the club and attending club events in a week. You can end up spending more time if you volunteer to help set up events or be a part of a committee, but again this is all optional. If you do sign up to volunteer, make sure you uphold your commitment since officers and other members are seriously counting on you.
The position of a member has the least amount of responsibility and no time obligations, letting you dedicate as little or as much time as you’d like.
Leaders
Being a leader of a general club requires quite a bit of responsibility and a larger time commitment (up to 10 hours a week). Depending on your leadership position or the number of tasks you agree to, your time commitment will fluctuate.
Before running for a leadership position, it’s important to understand the duties of that position and its time requirements. You don’t want to agree to a position you can’t uphold because you’ll be letting a lot of people down.
If you believe you can handle the time commitment and responsibility, being a club leader can be very fulfilling. You’ll meet tons of new people who’ll enjoy the events you’ll help plan and operate.
On top of this, you’ll have a lot of input into the creative direction of your club and its a success. For the cherry on top, you’ll gain leadership and decision-making experience that can be rare to gain in a classroom or at a minimum wage job.
Competitive Clubs
Clubs that require you to travel and compete require a significant amount of time and accountability. Club sports for example may mandate that team members make it to daily practices and have their weekends free to take group road trips to nearby cities to compete against other schools.
If you are highly competitive, social, and like traveling, a competitive club may be of interest to you. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a less rigorous time commitment, intramural sport is a great alternative.
All the games are localized to just your school, and depending on how competitive or how much your team likes to practice will dictate how much time you’ll have to allocate to the club.
Other competitive clubs may include debate, academics, esports, theater, and film. While they all can have highly competitive groups, there will most likely be a similar less competitive club to act as its counterpart.
For example, if you like debating but don’t want to stress about competition, try a discussion group for an interest you have such as politics or film.
Skill Building Clubs
There are many clubs that offer ways to build your skills or portfolio. Clubs focused on comic creation, filmography, coding, or journalism are offered to expand your skills and prepare you for life out of college.
These clubs act as extensions to your academic learning path aiding in your growth and development. Participating in these clubs will likely require a greater dedication of time, especially time spent independently or collaboratively working on projects or assignments.
Greek Life
Ranking in the highest for time commitment is Greek Life, especially during the pledging process. During pledging nearly all time spent outside of class will be dedicated to pledging activities such as meetings, socials, parties, and learning about the history of chapters and completing tasks to prove yourself as a potentially valuable member.
Since rushing and pledging are time-consuming and lasts anywhere from 3 to 6 months, students can have trouble focusing on academics and see lackluster grades as a result. This shouldn’t deter you from greek life if you’re truly interested, you’ll just need to plan your semester accordingly. During the semester you plan for rush, take a light load on classes or sign up for many of the “easy” classes for your major.
Being able to learn how to balance school and extracurricular activities will teach you the valuable skill of time management.
Visit the Student Organization Fair or Attend a Kick-Off Meeting
After visiting the club’s website or reading up on their promotional materials, it’s time to talk to the leaders in person. A club is only as good as the people in charge of it. Leaders are in charge of the attitude, culture, organization, and future of the club.
If you’re talking to these leaders directly at their booth during a student org fair, have a list of questions ready:
- What kind of events do you guys host?
- Do you have a schedule available for this semester?
- What is the average amount of time members spend participating in this club?
- Do members have a say in the decision-making process and how is this done?
- How do you guys obtain member feedback and use it to improve your club?
- How are funds and dues allocated to improve club members’ experience?
- How can I become a leader of this club one day?
Depending on how well club officers can answer questions such as the ones above will give you some level of their preparedness for the upcoming semester.
You can also gauge club culture by how energetically, friendly, or passionately these leaders talk about their club. They don’t have to be over-the-top, but if they like their club and its endeavors, you’ll be able to tell by the way they communicate.
During kick-off meetings, the leaders typically discuss how the club operates, the club schedule, and the types of events they host during the semester. If they don’t, don’t be afraid to approach an officer after the meeting and ask them the same questions you’d ask at the fair.
Kick-off meetings are also typically free since they’re used for recruitment and hyping up potential members to join. Attend all the kick-off meetings of the clubs you’re interested in to find which club(s) suit you best.
Taking the Leadership Step
Being a student leader can happen at any point in your college career. Your past participation experience will determine how ready you are to take up a leadership position.
For example, if you’ve participated in a student organization for a couple of semesters, I’d argue you’re ready to run for a position on the club’s board. It’ll be a fun experience and chance to help direct the future path of the club along while gaining teamwork and decision-making skills. I’d suggest running as a Treasurer, Secretary, Vice President, or any other role under the president. Also, read up on our leadership articles to prepare you for your position.
Even if you’re scared of rejection, run for the position and plan to run for backup positions at the same club or other clubs you’re interested in. Club elections are a judgment-free zone, rejections in life are inevitable, and either way it goes will be an invaluable experience.
Often, student clubs don’t have enough people running for positions. This can be due to imposter syndrome, fear of rejection, or a lack of interested members. Most organizations will be happy to have an extra person interested in a position.
If you’re already coming into college with student club leadership experience from high school, you’ll easily be able to handle a leadership position as early as your freshman year. Even so, it may help to freshen up on your leadership education through our website before you run for a position.
If you’ve had past student leader experience, think about running for student club president. The president should be the most knowledgeable about how a student club should operate, know how to successfully manage a team, and have a vision for the future of the club.
Join the Discussion!
Has this article helped you determine how to spend your extracurricular time? If so, tell us what clubs and(or) roles you’ve decided to take up this semester and why! If not, tell us how we can improve this article for future students.
