Sports and clubs are beneficial to students in many ways. The advantages of joining either one is much more important than worrying about the costs. These extracurricular activities help teenagers learn lessons that can sometimes only be hands-on and are also better learned early rather than later.  One of the biggest lesson that teenagers learn is time-management: “skills that are essential for keeping stress levels down and for improving productivity” (Mokeyane, 2009). This is useful in our everyday life.

As I was reading about sports and clubs, I learned many things which surprised me. I did not know that some of the grades that these students received were better than those who spent most of theirs nights studying or watching television.

Another surprise was the negative feedback toward teenagers in sports. Apparently, there are some who still do poorly in their academics, because they only focus on their sport. Thus, some believe that eliminating sports will save lots of money and can get the students to refocus on their academics. According to Amanda Rippley, “at many schools, sports are so entrenched that no one- not even the people in charged-realizes their actual cost” (Rippley, 2013). Although maintaining sports is expensive, it gives kids something to look forward to after school instead of coming home to an empty house. Besides focusing on all of the negative aspects such as the cost, sports and clubs help teenagers overcome their fear of not making friends, because being involved in sports or clubs practically forces them to interact with others. Thus, “social skills will in fact improve” (Anonymous 2010); this is clearly true because I have experienced this.

My research will help clear any uncertainties towards extracurricular activities--- social and academic. These findings help with new understandings and give us a range of statistics. Most statistics and information are positive. We can find an increase in grades of students who are involved which causes an increase in their GPAs; this increase can range from “0.55 to 0.74 points” (Cameron, 2012) which can possibly lead to a boost of self-esteem in a student. A boost like this causes motivation in students to share with others what they do to get these grades, which, in fact, represents them coming out of their comfort zone.

When teenagers enjoy themselves, they improve in their social skills by wanting to recruit others, especially if they know someone who is lonely or a dear friend who they want more time with. This research supports what happened to me. I know that it changes others by making them more social and better at time-management. I used to be extremely shy, but by joining sports and clubs, I was able to make friends with other teammates and club members. I even got some of my friends to join the sport I was in so that I could spend more time with them. I was able to meet new students and came out of my comfort zone. This made me feel better about myself for overcoming my shyness even if it was only a small part of my shyness that went away. Sports and clubs allowed me to do this and it will continue to do this for others.