From the moment you arrive to your destination country to fulfil your dreams of international education, your mind is occupied with the plans to survive, learn, sustain, get absorbed in the new country, learn the culture, adapt the food habits and even considering learning a new language to live better and a lot more. However, one completely misses on the fact of becoming a part of the educational environment and absorbing the soft skills that are required to perform and study better as an international student, which is possible easily by participating in the college/ university activities, clubs, tournaments and all that’s there! These are the extra curriculars that are an integral part of your international study experience and your academic profile that would be comprehended at the end of your academic tenure.
There are many students who feel it is always better to stick to people of their home country or be simply studious or be away from strangers as they are not comfortable to get along with them. Although, there are few amazing reasons how these extracurricular activities would benefit international students while they are studying.
Here are a few reasons why extracurricular activities are beneficial to your education abroad:
Cultural Blend:
Almost all students immigrate at a young age where they haven’t explored life even in their home country and are still under their parents’ protective shield. But when these students land in a foreign country to pursue their education further, they also come across new cultural aspects and life patterns that are completely unknown and unseen! Many find it uncomfortable to be a part of the community and even aren’t open to the new culture. Simply attending classes and earning good academic grades would not help, it might make it worse. It would suppress your socializing needs and make you home sick. Hence, making friends, accompanying them to events, social gatherings, celebrations would help to know the people around, adapt the culture and lifestyles while fulfil the needs of socializing. Moreover, it would also give opportunities to attend to your hobbies and interest with others, learn new skills or a sport too.
Social Skills:
Meeting new people, making new friends, participating in the events and fairs, can help students become out-going and enhance their social skills. It makes them street smart to handle the nuances and face challenges. Every day is new until the student gets habituated to the culture, hence enhancing the social skills are highly essential to live a socially healthy and happy life. It also ensures your mental well-being which is incredibly important to enhance one’s professional network that can be fruitful for fetching career opportunities after graduation. There are many incidences where students that participate in business forum and groups, may find opportunities for their start-ups. Similarly, those who are highly keen on arts, ensure they participate in competitions of painting and portraits or assist professional artists in their free time, this may end up getting real jobs with them.
Getting expert on local accent and languages:
While in a foreign country, it is always an add-on advantage to learn and converse in their local or regional language to understand and be understood better. For this, many universities and colleges provide language classes for students, that help students to go beyond their subjective classes and take up learning the regional or local language for better communication. Simply limiting to the language classes would not make students proficient enough. Socializing and networking with real people, learning and practicing your language skills with the locals has a different feel and deal to live in a new country. It is an important tool to become acceptable and a part of the society easily.
Enriches your Résumé:
Your extracurricular interests and achievements should be one of the significant details on the resume. The academic achievements, recommendation letters, internship certificates, degree certificates certainly have the strength to convey your worth. Yet, to share more on the personal front, soft skills and strengths that the student has developed, the extracurricular achievements say it louder and better. It helps the interviewer to read between the lines and get to the real worth of the student by:
The sport that you play, which makes you patient, a good team member and efficient to handle pressure and competition.
Any creative work that you have done, talks about the patience and tolerance you had to complete it so well.
Apart from the academic achievements, it also shows the capability to co-work on your passions and perform great there too.
Your balance between academic and extracurricular interests, define your personality and enhance the chances of your recruitment.
Showcasing soft skills that would enhance your professional journey:
Nonetheless, these extracurricular activities enrich one’s personality by enhancing interpersonal skills and workplace skills that are required to sustain and succeed on the professional fronts. Organizations always want candidates that are ready to kick start and that are “go-getters” for better professional performance for the organization and the candidate both.
The skills that are highly expected are:
Communication Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Team Skills
Leadership Skills
Continuous Learning
Time Management
Innovative and Flexible
Employers need dynamic candidates that can pick up the challenges and resolve them by learning and working on them. They cannot afford to spoon feed and train the basic skills to newbies.
THE RGB FACT ROLL: The extracurricular activities have an immense power to uplift your identity not only socially but also professionally. It inbuilds skills to keep you going and independent in all aspects!
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