Being involved can come as a comfort to some and a nightmare to others, so how do Rolla High School students juggle all these extras on top of their education? Out of the busier student population, junior Mohamed Algraiw has a packed schedule filled with multiple clubs and sports.
“In terms of sports, I play soccer in the fall, and I play tennis in the spring. For extracurriculars, I have band which is kind of both concert and marching band,” said Algraiw.
While being an active player and member of these sports, Algraiw also participates in academic activities: academic team as a team captain, Latin Club as a team captain of Latin Quiz Bowl, Science Olympiad, and Chess Club.
“I’m the team captain for the academic team. I’m a part of the Latin club and a part of that even a smaller subsection is the retirement team, which we go to compete in Latin quiz bowl and I’m the team captain of that. We’re bringing back Science Olympiad this year, so I’m hoping to participate in crossing my fingers that there aren’t any competition conflicts. I’ve got chess club,” said Algraiw.
School related activities can be pressing already in terms of time, but Algraiw also finds time for his outside hobbies when he gets a chance.
“I’m going to be starting to do competitive programming on my own, which it won’t be directly representing the school but it will be, I guess, an extra trick that I’ll be doing. And in my free time, you know, once-in-a-blue-moon when I have something that I’d like to work on, I’ve got a programming project that I’m currently working on,” said Algraiw.
Sometimes the consequence of being so involved is that activities collide. Algraiw deals with these collisions and prioritizes keeping his schedule on track.
“I’ve kind of figured out almost a little system to have priority. One of the first things that I think about is if it’s a practice or is it going to be a competition or say a match or whatnot, and then that scenario matches or competitions or whatever it may be, get the highest priority,” explained Algraiw.
Algraiw prioritizes between two of his bigger extracurriculars but then goes on to how to handle club meeting collisions.
“Say I have chess club on Mondays, but I also happen to have a Science Olympiad meeting for whatever reason, I could possibly do one for one day and then if that conflict arises again, I can choose to do another thing, which is also based on how much I have to do and how dire it is. So usually, I don’t have incredible amounts of conflict with practices, but it’s really just what I feel is more pressing at the moment,” explained Algraiw.
Conflictions can cycle depending on how seasons fall which can be unavoidable. Algraiw’s opinion wavers on if students were responsible for scheduling their activities accordingly so they wouldn’t collide or if sponsors should accommodate heavily involved students.
“I think that obviously, every activity no matter what you do, they should be understanding in the sense that their activity isn’t your only priority in life. And being a student in high school, there can be fifty different things that a student is juggling, and that’s to realize that it’s unrealistic to expect complete and full dedication, especially at such an early age where exploration is really key and expecting them [student participants] just to have full dedication to a certain thing,” said Algraiw.
Algraiw believes that there should be a bit of leniency, he also does not think that scheduling is solely up to the sponsors.
“I don’t think they should be your mom or your dad and schedule everything for you and make sure that everything just works out because nothing in the world just works out by chance. I mean, sometimes it does, but I think the responsibility does lie on the students, for them to make sure that they can attend everything and at least provide the dedication that seems realistic given their circumstances,” explained Algraiw.
Senior Kytelin Johns, another heavily involved student, has experienced a similar tension. Despite having a long schedule, she makes time for all the things she enjoys doing.
“My daily schedule is early morning band practice, go through school and then third hour is choir and then go through the rest of school, and then after school is play rehearsal. And then depending on the day, I also have StuCo meeting before that, play rehearsal, and a band rehearsal after the play rehearsal.”
Some extracurriculars do collide and sometimes there is no other option than to choose over two passions. In Johns’ case, her sponsors work together to keep those collisions from happening and if it does, they work together to make everything work.
“Well, the choir director, the band directors, and Mrs. McNeven all work together to make sure that kids who are in all of those things can do all of that,” said Johns.
While the majority of Johns’ sponsors work together and make it easy to participate in all of the things she enjoys, Johns feels extracurricular sponsor cooperation should be prominent in a student’s extracurriculars.
“I think they [sponsors] should accommodate busy students, especially if it’s common for those students to be in multiple things, like it’s very common for band, theater, and choir students to be in either all three or at least two of those things. So of course they have to work together. And I think people who are in sports need to accommodate for stuff like band, and I don’t know how much they do, because I’m not in sports, but I feel like that’s an accommodation that needs to be made because there’s a lot of people who overlap in those areas,” explained Johns.
In Johns’ opinion, accommodation is needed especially for students like herself. Her sponsors provide a decent amount of accommodation in her extracurriculars, but she still has times where prioritizing is needed.
“That’s going to be an issue next week because we’re going to start our dress rehearsals for the play, so I’m not going to be able to make the next week’s evening rehearsal. I’m going to be late because I have to do the dress rehearsal because it’s more important than just another band evening rehearsal,” said Johns.
While knowing that she has to prioritize, Johns has a specific way to go about it.
“Well, usually the band rehearsal will come first because I’m head drum major, but since it’s a dress rehearsal, McNeven has already talked to the directors about it. So I’m going to be staying for that,” explained Johns.
Juggling and making all of your activities can be hard, so how does it make involved students feel to be so busy? Finding comfort in all the chaos or resenting it comes different to all people.
“It’s nice, and sometimes it’s stressful,” says Johns. “It’s nice because I know I always have something to do and it’s not like I just sit around and do nothing all day. And then obviously, sometimes it’s stressful because sometimes I have no breaks because I’m so busy.”
