By Sheersho Zaman

The life of a typical student can be pretty one-dimensional sometimes, especially in Bangladesh. It is an extremely monotonous routine riddled with classes, exams, even more classes, homework, so on and so forth. Very few people actually take time to do anything else with whatever little free time they have left, usually spending it to climb the social hierarchy ladder, introduced to us by every high-school movie ever. It is only when these people are finally about to graduate and apply to universities, especially to ones abroad, when they realize how wastefully they have spent their free time and how little they know of themselves.
Almost every single university abroad asks for a long list of extracurricular activities and requires the applicant to excel at at least one of these activities. In fact, most universities in the United States even prefer strong extracurricular activities to good grades. Someone who had all A’s in their A-levels but little to no extracurricular activities would probably have a lower chance of getting in to a university compared to a person with all B’s in their A-levels but a strong showing in an extracurricular activity. This can leave many students, even those who gave their all by studying day and night to bring good grades and even managing to do so, fail to get into a university simply due to their lack of extracurricular activities.
The reason little to no students pursue no extracurricular outside of their studies is not entirely their own fault. Most students here are taught from the get-go, by either their parents or teachers, that getting good grades is everything, when of course it is not. Neither of these students, parents or even teachers is aware of the true value of extracurricular activities, not only in the case of being admitted to a good college abroad, but as a means to know oneself.
These students should be encouraged to go out and try new things. They should be allowed to pick up a guitar and play it without it being termed as “a waste of time” by their elders. They should be allowed to sketch and draw to their hearts content, without being rebuked and told to “go study” instead. Going out and trying all these different things will help these kids develop more than their academic senses. It will help them realize the kind of person they are and the kind of things they want to do in life. The fact that it also helps buff up university applications simply means that it is a “two-birds one stone” kind of scenario.
Academics are very important, but they should not be considered as the only thing that matters. Engaging in extracurricular activities leads to the development of something of much greater importance to these students. “It” is something that many of these students lost the moment they stepped out of their childhood and in to adolescence. “It” is the ability to dream.