Extracurricular activities are an excellent way for individuals to explore and discover their passions while developing themselves as a person in preparation for their future career paths. However, letting these get to your head and attempting too many is not beneficial in the long-term. My previous list of extracurricular activities looked something like this: Chamber Orchestra, Varsity Tennis, Tae Kwon Do, Asian American Club, Business Club, Student Sustainability Committee, etc. Of all these activities, I am now only playing tennis (as a hobby). So what's the point?
When most people think about extracurricular activities in relation to colleges applications, the notion is "more is better" so they fill their resumes to the brim hoping people will view them higher for being a Jack-of-All trades. Exploring new hobbies and wanting to add to your portfolio of experiences is fine but when one becomes greedy and attempts to be good at all things or, even worse, simply joins organizations just to say they were in them is problematic, to say the least.
The reason this is problematic has nothing to do with colleges, admission boards, etc. It's with you. When contemplating about life, there's really not much time to do everything you might possibly want to do and the sooner you realize this humbling fact, the more you'll likely see why spreading your time paper thin across all these different activities is ludicrous (especially when you probably won't be sustaining these activities in the future like me with orchestra resulting in my violin catching dust in the closet).
The saying goes quality over quantity and that truth resonates here as well. Pick a few (if not simply one) extracurricular activities to truly devote your time to when you're not doing homework and spending time with family & friends. Pick these and do them well (compete if you can)! If there is anything I regret, it is that I didn't stay focused on one or two passions and stay committed to them until this day. I cannot imagine the potential feats I missed by not spending more time on my own interests. In other words, just do what you're passionate about and stick with it! Consistency is the name of the game..
And if your mind is still stuck on colleges, remember this: Admission boards of colleges (at least the universities I've attended) care little about the number of extracurricular activities compared to what you've actually accomplished with regard to each. So before you stuff every last bit of your life into a resume mentioning you were the vice president here, team captain there, etc. and force the font size below the legible limit, think again. Maybe one day you'll be able to write a blog post touting similar words as I and exemplifying these words with your own success for sticking with your passions.
