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The Daily Tar Heel

Editorial: you don't have to be in every club

At the beginning of each semester, students feel pressure to join clubs, sign up for extracurriculars and add to their resumes. 

No doubt, extracurricular activities are important in any student’s life. They can serve as a source of enjoyment, community and stress. 

They can also be great outlets for creativity, compassion and ambition. Extracurricular activities can build bridges among students who otherwise never would have met. 

Yet, each student is just that — a student. 

You may look around to see that you have friends that are pulled in many different directions because of their extracurricular activities. But you may also see that you have friends who are not. You may have some friends who can count their types of involvement on one hand. And that’s okay. 

While our campus environment pushes us to become involved and our campus tour guides tout the number of clubs at UNC, remember that you’re here because you’re a student. You don’t have to become involved with every organization on campus that catches your attention in the interest of bolstering your resume. 

Focusing on your studies is extremely valuable. 

It takes time to become an expert in the field you’re studying. And it takes effort. If you’re studying a subject in the humanities, you may spend hours reading for homework every night, and you may find that you have to read more than assigned to really understand. 

If you’re studying a subject in the hard sciences, you may spend the same amount of time working through assigned problem sets, and to master the material you may find that you have to look deeper. 

Don’t give your friends who study avidly a hard time for not bulking up their resumes with various commitments. Instead, recognize their dedication to their craft. It is something to be proud of.

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