Students take extracurricular activities for a variety of reasons, such as having a better college application and meeting parents’ expectations; however, some participate in their extracurricular activities simply because they enjoy them.

“All the clubs I do and all the sports I do, I really do love them, they’re not just something to write on a college application,” said freshman Tanya Vasireddy.

Vasireddy’s activities include Speech and Debate, DECA, Student Council, dive team, and field hockey.

This is her first time in DECA, Student Council, and Speech and Debate. She is doing these because they are seen in more professional environments with which she wants to get involved.

Through these clubs, she met many new friends to socialize with; however she does not get much time to talk to others outside of these clubs and sports. She says that these activities can sometimes affect the amount of sleep and free time she has.

Vasireddy puts in a lot of her time towards her extracurriculars and sports. Even with her busy schedule, she does not give them up because she loves them so much.

Another freshman, Kenna Tighe, does dance and DECA. She attends dance classes four times a week, for three or more hours each day. Tighe has been dancing since she was four and DECA sounded fun to her so she chose to do it.

Some days she does not get home until 9 o’clock due to dance and she has to do her work which can lead her to not go to bed until 11:30 p.m or later.

This does not allow her to have free time but she does have time to socialize outside of the school.

“DECA doesn’t really affect anything, it’s only once a week, but dance is like 12 plus hours a week, so I don’t have a lot of time to do homework, and I’m very busy on the weekends,” said Tighe.

Similar to what Vasireddy said about her activities, Tighe said that she would not give up dance, since it has become such a huge part of her life since she began when she was three years old.

Harleen Kaur, a freshman, participates in dance, tennis, swimming, DECA, HOSA, and Latin Club. She has to manage her time to do her homework, study, and do well in her activities. She picked these clubs because she thought they would be interesting. Kaur started to take dance class because of her parent’s expectation but she decided to continue doing it out of her interest.

Kaur doesn’t have enough time to socialize because she has many tasks and things to do. She says all of her activities and sports all together adds more stress to her because she has to be better at time management. She only gets an average of four to five hours of sleep each night due to the workload from school, her clubs, and activities even when she manages time well. She devotes her time to keep her grades up and to perform well in these activities.

“I have a couple of things[…]but it is up to me if I take them or not,” Harleen said.

Kaur would continue to do her activities when her grades are not too bad but she would quit most of her extracurriculars if her grades are dropped severely because she thinks her grades and academics are more important than her extracurriculars.