Graphic by Fani Hsieh
As people, we grow, we learn and evolve through experience and adventures.
Classroom lectures and good grades will never make us complete. While high GPAs may hold the highest priority in university life, so should non-academic accomplishments.
While we may be passionate about what we learn in the classrooms, we are still bound by the course material and its contents.
Whereas extracurriculars allow one to explore and discover new strengths, likes and even dislikes. Not only do we gain a myriad of experiences, but we also get to meet new people, make new friends outside our faculty and be introduced to different backgrounds.
We can also open the door to create connections for our future after graduation, because at the end of day, we are trying to prepare ourselves in the best way possible to what lies beyond university.
When applying to jobs after graduating, a person with the perfect GPA may assume they have the job in the bag, but what they don’t know is that there are tens of hundreds of others who apply with the same perfect GPA.
What sets one apart from the other, however, comes down to everything except for academic grades.
Indeed, employers would rather see an individual who took the time to get involved on campus and with the community while still maintaining good grades, rather than a person who just stuck to the books to achieve academic excellence.
Wilfrid Laurier University arguably has one of the strongest sense of community and school spirit in all of Canada.
There are many people involved in different areas and corners on campus.
Yet, there are still those a bit lost, confused and looking to find new friends.
For those, there is something for everybody; there are more than 140 clubs on campus with more services to get involved in through the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union and beyond.
Sometimes, there are niche groups and clubs hidden like buried treasures, which many would join in a heartbeat.
So we should try to get outside our comfort zone and try new things, because they may turn out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of our university careers.
One of the best aspects about university is the opportunity to try new things.
Ten years from now you are far more likely to look back at the experiences you have than the weekly online quizzes you’ve spent hours stressing about.