When beginning your high school career, many may hear a phrase repeated constantly. Parents, teachers, counselors, pounding it into your mind, “Get involved.” All anyone can seem to mention is the amount of opportunities high school gives you. As this is true, with the variety of sports, volunteering, and clubs, it gets to a point where it is overflowing. There are almost too many options. Too many things to be a part of with not enough hours in the day to do them all.
At South, there are just too many clubs. Many are either poorly run/managed, contain similar missions/tasks or overlap in events and meeting times. This combination of chaos creates an environment that proves to be difficult for many students to do what they truly want.
Once a club or society is created, the upkeep can be a challenge for many. From meetings to activities, and eventually goals, not everything ends up getting done. Last year, I joined the Spanish Honors Society. All I had to do was maintain my Spanish GPA and sign a commitment form. Since then, there have been no other meetings or communication, leaving us “members” uninformed. With situations like these, it proves that people already have too much going on to run it, or there really is no need for this extra opportunity.
Within the long list of clubs, many may do similar activities or things for the community. Varsity Club and Interact Club, even NHS, do many volunteer activities. Whether this be can drives or coat drives, many end up overlapping, then producing a less positive outcome. Environmental Club and Save the Lakes both cover topics related to the betterment of our environment, both attempting to do a very similar thing.
The most debilitating effect of these clubs is the times they must fall. Many clubs will overlap on their meeting times, limiting kids to what they participate in. Personally, I’ve wanted to do a varsity club, but Student Government is at the same time, so I must make a decision, picking one over the other. In many other instances, students have to do the same. Putting down potentially great opportunities for their involvement and future.
South’s Club list needs a cleansing. It needs to be run through and checked with advisors and presidents to see their mission and activity level, as if they were still constantly meeting. If we take time to go through them all and even make time adjustments, many students may be able to participate in what they truly want to do.