I believe all students should have a hobby. Whether it is football, photography, or chess club, extracurricular activities have many positive impacts on students. It adds positvity to the environment kids go to five days a week. I support my principal's decision. I know in my heart that Generic_School will improve drastically by this decision. I agree in having required extracurricular activities because it allows students to be active in their school community, it helps students to find new activities that they will enjoy, and it encourages friendship with students who have similar interests.

To begin, having all students participate in activities doubles, and even triples the amount of support in our school community. Clubs or sports with lesser students will have many helping hands thanks to the extracurricular requirement. Clubs such as school beautification, girl power, and art will have enough members to paint more positive murals. We would be able to have our own lacrosse and field hockey teams instead of having to put students on the Generic_School junior varsity teams. More members also means more students can help collect donations or start fundraisers for the program that they are in. The money would help to fund trips and supplies.

Secondly, it lets students find an extracurricular that they enjoy. With activities being a requirement, students can explore different things that they have never done before. For instance, maybe a student has never been apart school extracurricular before. This gives them an array of options. They decide to join the soccer team. They will either enjoy the sport or they will not. If they enjoy playing soccer, that is wonderful! They will be happily supported by the other teammates. If they don't have fun it is not a bad thing. Maybe they will try student council, cheer-leading, or the international language club. Finding out that they don't like doing a certain activity encourages putting an effort in finding a new one, while finding out they do like a certain activity will inspire them to participate in that activity on a daily basis.

Lastly, it introduces students who have similar interests. Sometimes students have trouble making friends in their everyday classes. Maybe they are the only kid in language arts who is obsessed with animals. This causes the student to feel alone. Then, they join the animal lovers club. It's like a whole new world for them. They get to interact with other people who love animals as much as they do. The student is immediately introduced and accepted by the other club members. They even become friends with a group of student who loves the same animal as they do. Extracurricular activities will bring together so many students, and it might even be able to end cliques and a majority of bullying.

To conclude, Mr. Generic_Name's decision make extracurriculars a school wide requirement was quite wise. I cannot wait to see how much the school will gradually improve. It may take weeks or months, but I know our school will benefit from it in the end. Hopefully all the activities won't be completely filled before I myself can join! In the end,I am glad we decided to enact the extracurricular requirement because it helps the school community, it allows students to explore different activities, and it promotes friendship between students with similar interests.