Nowadays, there is no question of the importance of attending college. It is a time for students to figure out a wide range of priorities, from what career they want to pursue, to how many meals they will be able to eat each day.

One aspect that is not so clear is the balance between GPA and extracurricular activities. This is a debate that has gone on for awhile, and most views on the topic have a fair amount of truth to them. What makes a big difference is the particular major a student is studying.

For someone who is a law or medical field major, classwork like tests is a sufficient gauge of competency. These are majors where studying material and committing it to memory are essential to one’s success in their career. Therefore, their GPA is pretty important.

However, for people who are in majors like broadcasting and journalism, extracurricular activities are a much better gauge of competency for those particular fields as opposed to test and homework from classes.

Being a broadcasting or journalism major offers some unique extracurricular activities for students to get involved in. For example, Oswego State offers all students, not just broadcasting or journalism majors, a radio station, newspaper and a TV station to join and get hands-on experience. That experience deals directly with activities and responsibilities someone would apply when they have a job after graduating. There are classes that deal with firsthand experience, but it is typically a much more condensed version that what one would find joining a media organization, or whatever club that deals with their major. Also, when looking at classes, employers focus on the GPA alone, not what specific activities students did in the class.

Internships also fall under the category of extracurricular activities and are great way for employers to gauge an individual’s competence, regardless of their major. A big part of that is the fact that with internships, one actually does work directly for a company that they would do in a real job. Therefore, not only is the individual gaining experience, but also the company they are working for is able to observe the individuals’ work ethic and other essential skills that would lead to them becoming a potential employee. GPAs do not provide this.   

Overall, both extracurricular activities and GPAs are very important components for one’s quest to graduate and start a career. Although, at the end of the day, there are certain qualities offered through extracurricular involvement that a GPA cannot match.

This is something more colleges should empathize with rather than focusing on grades, and test scores. Going back to the media organizations specifically, sometimes they run low on members, and plenty of students in the broadcasting or journalism majors do not participate in any of the organizations. This may be due those students wanting to focus on their classes and getting a good GPA. Perhaps, the importance of extracurricular activities and getting hands-on experience needs to be stressed more.

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