Extracurricular activities have been around for decades, they've been proven to help students socialize, and keep students active. In my opinion, it is best for every student to be able to experience after school activities in order to find what hobbies they have; or even later on in their life, find out what career they might want to pursue.

As technology advances, and the times change, the amount of activities readily available for students to participate in, will increase. Today many of those after school, or even in school activities can vary from, sports (football, baseball, soccer, basketball, table tennis), art and photography clubs, councils, donation groups. There are a huge assortment of fantastic groups, clubs, teams, you can choose from, typically they do not require a fee, or any payment upon joining. A great example of an extracurricular activity is, JROTC. JROTC is a program that teaches highschoolers, and sometimes middleschoolers about what you will learn, and what you'll do in the military based on it's respective branch. Not only does it teach the process of basic training, and what's to come, you will learn discipline, respect, honesty, and to be physically ready to get through basic training. Sports can teach you teamwork, and being a good sport, while promoting good health. Creative arts could help students relax, and bring out their artsy side that they didn't know they had, or cannot bring out at home.

I believe it is more important to take part in extracurricular activities if your school doesn't have recess or gym. Back in elementary school, recess was the major part of the day that you would be excited for. That 45 minutes or hour was the peak of the day where you could get your excitement out, talk and play with your buddies, or just relax and nap. Me and many others were quite disappointed when we got to middle school, that recess had been replaced with gym or study hall. Then I remember learning about clubs and after school fun that I could do. For me, this was even better than recess, you had a lot more options than you would with just a playground, maybe a basketball court. Depending on what they school provided, it seemed I had the power of choice. This time around I could chose if I even wanted to stay after school. Staying after school, you can chat, play, with your friends, I think this is a wonderful outlet for people who may be having troubles at home, maybe they don't have friends and they want to find someone to hangout with. School can be the best place, or the worst place for people in need.

In many ways after school activities are good, however they have their cons. For some, their parents force them into after school activates, regardless if they would like to or not. I believe you should throw yourself into some things and see how you like them, but if a student really does not want to be there, then they should have an alternative to be able to chill instead of forcing them to do an activity they don't want to do. Again, it's for the benefit of the student, not the parents or the school. Bullying could also stand a problem in after school activities, but the truth is, bullying and foul people contaminant every where you will go, even adults in the real world. Bullying, just like world hunger is something that cannot be fixed, we do not live in a perfect utopia, the likes of such are impossible as there will always be bad people. There are though, many things we can do to prevent this from being common in extracurricular activities. You should stray from separating kids, as that can make it easier to gang up on a single group of people, or one person alone. Promoting good sportsmanship and including everyone can keep it on the level side to make sure everyone is having fun.

Overall, after school activities are a great idea if you maybe want to get your mind off things, take a break from what might be slowing you down and beating you up in life. The only way to beat depression is to get up out of your hole, do something to ease your mind, and never get bored. Maybe you just wanna have fun with your friends, and talk, play, plan, with them because you live a great distance from each other. If you want to prepare for the real world, and get ready for what it will mean to serve your country, be apart of your community, contribute to the work force, there are many options that schools provide for you. No matter who you are, where you come from, it doesn't matter, everyone is welcome to participate in extracurricular activities.