Because of their busy schedules, many students may or may not look forward to participate in extracurricular activities school has to offer as an elective or an after school activity.

Students are back for an in-person school experience after much time of online school via Zoom, so they must find a balance between their after school activities and their school work to ease their way back into a rhythm.

“Because of the pandemic, many students didn’t do as many extracurricular activities, I feel that students were less rushed and had more free time,” Said Alma Perez, a sophomore at Millikan High School in Long Beach.

It is important to balance the time spent on school work, extracurricular activities, and free time to have a more positive experience in the day-to-day life and to prevent burn out. Overdoing it on extracurricular activities can too, be tiresome because the downtime is limited.

“I sometimes want to just enjoy the backyard reading a book or bake something with my mom, but I feel like I am always out practicing soccer or doing homework,” said Alma.

Some students may be faced with too many extracurricular activities. They may be rushing from soccer practice to piano lessons to end their evening with homework assignments late into the night, therefore they might not experience any type of social interaction.

However, not having any extracurricular activities can also lead to an unbalanced education. The lack of exposure of additional activities gives you an advantage to those who are exposed to them.

The trick to managing the extracurricular activities, school work, and social life is to keep schedules and be disciplined to follow them, stay on top of all school assignments, set limits on screen time/electronics, spend quality time with family and friends, and stay healthy by eating and sleeping well.

“When doing extra-curricular activities, you must make sure to keep a balance. Don’t let the work pile up, and try to do the assignments the day they are assigned,” Perez said.