Whenever I think back on my freshman year of high school, I remember being conflicted on whether to focus on my academics or whether I should get involved in my school and community through extracurriculars. The seniors all had differing ideas as well. One person might say to focus on studies, because competitive colleges will only take students with a high GPA, while another person would say to participate in extracurricular activities in order to show prospective colleges that I was a well-rounded student. I ended up taking the middle route, focusing equally on my grades and my extracurricular activities. However, if I were to be asked about my opinion, I would say that extracurricular activities are more important, and definitely my priority for a few specific reasons, including that extracurriculars, not your GPA, help you find your interests, and that GPA ceases to matter once you join your first job out of college.

Extracurriculars help you find your interests, and as a result, they help you grow as a person. I started many extracurriculars when I was five years old, and I continued them throughout high school. When I first began, I never liked going to my dance and singing classes because I thought they were boring. However, my parents expected me to try both and stick with them for a while before I would be allowed to stop taking the classes. I thought this was extremely unfair; why should I have to go to a class I don’t like? Still, I kept going at it, and to my surprise, I ended up loving these activities. Today, I love dancing, even if I don’t have time to practice as often as I used to, and my favorite activity in college is my Indian classical music association. My participation in these activities allowed me to find my favorite hobbies and passions, letting me find a way to take a break from my academics. And sticking with these extracurriculars let me understand the value of perseverance and always giving something a try before rejecting it.

The other reason I believe that extracurriculars are more important than GPA is that your GPA is no longer relevant after you get into whatever you applied for: whether that is college, a program, or your first post-college job. In my own experience, my high school GPA, which I spent four years carefully cultivating, stopped mattering the second I began college. In fact, I had my resume read by one of my TAs, and the first thing she suggested was to get rid of the line where I included my high school GPA, because potential employers would not take it into consideration. I was shocked, especially since it was hammered into my brain by my high school counselors that my GPA would essentially determine the trajectory of my life. In hindsight, they were speaking of how my GPA would affect my college admissions. However, after being told that the GPA I had been stressing about for years no longer mattered, I was annoyed. Now, I assume that after I begin my first job after graduating college, my GPA will no longer matter as much as my previous experience in my career. Currently, I’m worried about my GPA only because I need to keep it up in order to be accepted into my preferred major. As a result, I believe that GPA is important to an extent, but it is certainly not as important or more important than my extracurricular activities.