High School: Real Life Preparation by Morgan

High School: Real Life Preparation by Morgan - October 2015 Scholarship Essay

If you were to ask any adult if they are required to multitask in their life, they would confirm that in a heartbeat. Some adults are parents that have the responsibilities of raising a child while also holding down a job. Many adults have hobbies or maintain an exercise regimen to keep mentally and physically healthy. Balancing all of these activities effectively takes coordination and practice. Preparing the youth to enter adulthood is among the many benefits attending high school offers. Education is not the only tool that students acquire; they are offered countless opportunities to join a club, sports team, or maybe take an art class. While it is true that high schools offer these opportunities, not all students take advantage of them for various reasons. At the high school age, the fear of failing is extremely high. A teenager may opt out of that art class because they are afraid they won’t succeed. They might not try out for the baseball team because they don’t think they’re good enough. All of these insecurities could be resolved if extracurricular activities were required for all students.
If it were required for a student to engage in at least one extracurricular activity in order to graduate, the fear of embarrassment would be eliminated because everyone would be put in the same situation. A student may not have realized they were good at playing the trumpet until they were forced to engage in something outside of their traditional curriculum. Not only would this opportune a student with the ability to find a talent, it would teach them how to engage in more than one activity. For example, balancing homework with soccer practice.
The whole point of students attending high school is to prepare them for the real world. The real world is not monotonous; it doesn’t operate in a single facet. Upon high school graduation, many students will attend college, which is becoming increasingly expensive. Many students will be required to work their way through school in order to afford it. Maintaining a job while attending classes and doing homework requires skills that could potentially be taught in high school: coordination, multitasking, and prioritizing.
It is also a fact that students don’t have equal circumstances at home. In the unfortunate situation of a student who suffers for lack of support from their parents, they may find refuge in a hobby discovered at school. Uninvolved parents may discourage a student from joining the band because they don’t want to take them to practice. What if this wasn’t a choice the parents had to make anymore? The student would now be required to choose an activity based on his or her own interests. In this situation, all students would be given the exact same opportunity, unbiased to personal life circumstances.
Requiring that high school students engage in extracurricular activities would eliminate the alienation some teenagers feel when placed outside their comfort zone because everyone would be in the same boat. It would also teach students the essential ability to balance all of life’s circumstances. If it were required for students to engage in something outside of their educational program, they might discover talents they wouldn’t otherwise know they had. A part of growing up is defining yourself, and in order to do that, there needs to be experimentation. What better place to do that than in high school with the support of other people in the same stage of life and faculty who care? It is quite obvious that the benefits of requiring extracurricular activities in high school are countless, but the most important being the enrichment of the student and the preparation for adulthood.