Why are Extracurricular Activities expected from your student profile?
Your academic career is not just defined by books, grades and classes you passed! It revolves around a lot more on the extracurricular activities that keep you glued to the schools you go too. However, it is not compulsory nor expected for each student to participate. These activities can be sports, activity center, volunteers, the arts club, the music bands, the community service and a lot more. These activities can often reward you with certificates, awards and some recognition unless one is really keen and interested. Students also end up with some amazing opportunities to work in the real world with real remuneration too, like internships. Yet, that happens only with a whole lot of dedicated hard work and passion!
These are a few popular choices that students make for their extracurricular activities. Having any of these listed on your curriculum vitae would surely be beneficial for your study abroad future roadmap!
Most Popular Extracurricular Activities for International Students
Here are the top 5 extracurricular activities that are a sure thing for everyone while studying in the international campuses of countries like Canada, US, UK, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the European Countries.
To apply for foreign education and later to apply for jobs after your education, it is significantly important to have your interests and participation listed on your curriculum vitae about the extracurricular activities you enjoyed.
Sports: Sports is truly an enduring passion. It has the power to not only keep you fit but also help you to gain skills of sport while being a great team player and leader. Students may not typically participate in all sports or tournaments of soccer, run races or be great gymnasts, but at least participate for healthy participation such as some indoor games if needed such as Table Tennis or even Chess. Sports teach the spirit of sportsmanship and healthy competition.
TIP: Playing a sport (indoor or outdoor) proves your ability to fight crisis and win over difficulties.
Performing Arts and Theatre Club: Participating in plays, can help you make friends but also understand people better. It makes you enjoy life closely by engaging in dance, playing characters, orchestras, choirs and even playing an instrument. It boosts your confidence by performing in front of strangers. It surely helps you engage with your audience by performing and improves your non-verbal communications by being on the stage far away without direct communication and to connect with your audience.
TIP: Performing arts and theatre surely develop patience, adjusting and tolerance in a human. It teaches creativity and trusting one’s instincts.
Business Development Groups and Forums: Well, this option is really for the students with the instincts of entrepreneurship and the attitude to make a change and develop and learn continuously. There are groups and clubs like the Ted-Ex, The Toastmasters where students can not only participate but also learn from the ongoing debates, discussions, talks by the industry experts. These platforms not only let you learn or simply participate but also lay the foundation to cater your future passions of opportunities in the corporate world. Students can also benefit with the opportunities to have investors for their start-ups too.
TIP: These business groups and forums showcase the intrinsic creative thinking in you as a new corporate leader of the future, ability to research and develop new market trends and demands.
Volunteering: Students these days are involving themselves with volunteering for the health and social causes that have surfaced with the history’s largest pandemics. But apart from this, students while studying internationally, may choose to volunteer for certain jobs, where they receive appreciations and recommendation letters in return for their selfless assistance to the organization or community center. These opportunities may not seem attractive as they do not involve monetary rewards but let the students work and learn the real market needs, trends and approach for the betterment of trade and commerce as well as the society. It is often popular among students who wish to work beyond their official work hours, which is observed in countries like the United States and Canada quite often.
TIP: Volunteering paints a completely different picture of you as a person, it reflects your personality directly and helps the interviewer incline towards you for better prospects of your recruitment.
Model United Nations: This is quite a heavy and extraordinary interest that not many students could deal with. Yet, having it on the resume would make it worth recruiting you. There are a few students who really have the zeal to take the responsibility of the student government position that is responsible to represent the student body. To start with smaller steps, one can participate in clubs like the Model UN, which has the opportunity to represent one’s home country while participating in the mock debates and be able to discuss the new day world terrors and issues that bother the society as a whole.
TIP: Having these participations mentioned in the resume classifies the unique characteristics the student holds. It becomes inevitable for the interviewer to actually dive deeper to choose the student for enhancing the reputation of the academic institution or the organization, by actually including you to represent them.
THE RGB FACT ROLL: Extracurricular activities, interests and hobbies of the students make a crucial element on your SOP for your successful student visa application. Never miss writing about them, as your marksheets and certificates already have the content to talk about your academic achievements, you need to mention what is not mentioned in them!
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