Students Participation in Co-Curricular Activities
Group Discussion| October 29 2012 | John Cheok, Wai Wai and Sin Ping| Sorry, If your name are typed wrongly and please voice out if you have any problem. TQ| John: Well, we shall discuss our task given to us by Ms. Low today. So do you have anything to bring up? WW: Sorry for the interruption, but I did not pay attention during English class last week. Do you mind to explain what are we supposed to discuss? John: Everyone in the class is divided into groups and we are supposed to discuss the question that are given and present it to the class.
WW: I’d appreciate it if you could enlighten me further on the question given. SP: Wai Wai, the question given to us is about students participation in co-curricular activities has not been encouraging. We are must discuss the reason and implications and not to forget, the ways to overcome it. John: I’m glad someone actually listens in class. Co-curricular activities are non-academic activities that are conducted in schools or colleges. Furthermore, the objective of these activities is to help prepare the physical strength and mental state of students.
These activities may vary from football to public speaking. WW: From my point of view, these activities help the students a lot, so I can’t understand why are their participation discourage? SP: In general, college students have not enough time. They have to juggle around with many things. Students not have many lecture and tutorial classes to attend. For example, I finished my lecture at 10am, my next tutorial class is at 10. 30 and I have to race all the way to the class that is situated so far. Let alone co-curricular activities, I don’t even have enough time to finish up my homework.
John: I think we share the same opinion on this matter, there are so many assignments that I have to pass up. And the deadlines are all right next after the previous. I don’t think 24 hours for a college student is enough. I think I need 30 hours a day to join a co-curricular activity. WW: I agree with you on that, but if we manage our time properly, we will find out that we spend a lot of our time on unnecessary matters, for example many students are now addicted to Facebook. They log on to Facebook like every hour. And also many are addicted to Korean dramas.
Instead of wasting time streaming for an episode. Why not join a co-curricular activity? SP: I’m afraid I’m not really convinced by you. One of the reasons is activities in co-curricular are not interesting. Students are learning what they have learned in secondary school again and again. The repetitive and common activities will not attract the students to participate. John: I think it is fair to say that the way to overcome this problem is by adding more interesting activities that can attract many young adults to participate and most important have fun while doing certain activity.
WW: It suddenly rang in my mind that many of my friends told me this before, the activities conducted in co-curricular are not helpful in their future career. On one hand it may not be helpful but on the other hand it may also be less encourage because of parents objection. SP: I totally agree with you. If students take part in these activities, they will have to stay longer in college. It is normal for the parents to be worried. I understand this because my mother will also get worried of me. They are afraid that I will mix with the wrong group or even play truant.
John: I rather blame student themselves to be lazy than blaming parents for not letting us join the co-curricular activities. WW: May I interrupt you for a moment? John: If I may just finish, As I was saying, if a student is hardworking and responsible, I am sure that their parents will believe them and not worried that they will mix with the wrong people neither will they play truant. WW: In that case, I’m sorry to say that I may not be able to accept that. SP: Let’s not argue further but discuss about ways to overcome this problem. John: I think a campaign will help.
WW: Could you explain this matter further? John: What I was thinking just now is that the college should held a campaign to encourage the students to take part in co-curricular. In that campaign, students should be given with more details and they can also ask questions about the activities that they are keen to join. By doing this, the students might gain more interest or even be exposed to new things. SP: I see eye to eye with you about this. Besides organizing a campaign, the college can also make it compulsory to join co-curricular activities.
If students refused to join, they will never graduate. WW: I concur with you on this issue, but if the college forced their students to take part in the co-curricular activities, they students will not enjoy themselves but it will even male them more stress. From my point of view, the college should reward students with credit hour. For example in Tar College, if you join the co-curricular units, at the end of the semester, you will earn two credit hours. John: Wow, by doing this, students will gain more knowledge and also do something for them to graduate by earning those credit hours.
I’m sure students in TAR College are all willing to take part in their co-curricular units. I think students will gain more experience by participating in co-curricular activities. I believe, Co-curricular activities will expose students to many new things, hence it have many benefits. To conclude our discussion, the main reason for students not to take part in the co-curricular activities is lack of time or has bad time management and to overcome it, students must learn to distribute their time not only for their academic but also for some co-curricular activities.
