A common theme with all of our latest articles is the fact that 2015 is a new year with new opportunities. One of those opportunities is to evaluate where exactly you stand in life. Is it where you want to be? Or are you perfectly happy and content with the person you are right now? Most people people I know would answer “yes” to the first question and are always striving toward the elusive goal of self improvement. What better way to start off 2015 than by fully taking advantage of all of the opportunities that HHS has to offer?

You have four years here and at a basic level you have two options on how to spend them. One option is to choose to whine and complain about everything that doesn’t go your way. This option is exercised whenever you hear people grumble and grouse over doing work in class. I know far too many people who take that option and it’s honestly quite depressing for me to hear.

The other option (and the most favorable one) is to realize that you have the opportunity to become a better person and improve yourself during your years as a high school student. You are stuck here for about 40 hours a week so you might as well make the best of it. The best way to meet that goal is to become involved in HHS wealth of extracurricular clubs and activities. Most people I know are involved in at least a couple of them.

But joining an activity just to list it on your college applications isn’t enough.  I would encourage everyone to take the next step and ask themselves why they involved in the activities that they have chosen. Too many people fall into the trap of selecting activities due to the perceived value of them to college admissions boards. No matter how many times it has been debunked, the misconception remains that you have to be involved in everything in order to have a shot at college. Or even worse, that you have to be in the right clubs. This leads to an unfortunate issue of people attending meetings but not really being too engaged. In such a case, both the person and the club in question are being hurt. The person is wasting their time and the club finds itself starved of talent or energy and it ends up dying. That is an end result that, as a senior, I have seen far too often and heard earfuls about from plenty of other people. It is a situation we as a student body should resolve to prevent in 2015 and going forward.

I really encourage everyone to look at their extracurriculars and ask themselves whether it is the best use of their talents. To continue doing an activity you have no passion for is doing a disservice to everyone involved. Don’t overextend yourself to create a grand resume of activities. Find something you’re really interested in and commit to it.

That being said, News Club is always looking for new writers and we encourage anyone to come our meetings in the Library on Wednesdays. If nothing else, you’ll see me there ;).