In today’s world, students constantly feel the need to participate in numerous clubs, organizations, and activities. Feel like an over-committed college student? Yeah, so do the rest of us. So if we frequently stress over the lack of time we have to just relax and enjoy life as young adults, then why don’t we reduce the amount of activities we’re involved in? I mean, that seems like the easy solution, doesn’t it?

Well, the answer is simple: college students love to present themselves as overachievers both inside and outside the classroom. Trust me, we don’t torture ourselves because we love feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious on a daily basis. We fill up every second of our days with endless group meetings, charity events, and philanthropic fundraisers because we’ve been trained to think that companies, employers, and graduate programs favor more ‘well-rounded’ individuals over other less ‘attractive’ candidates for job openings.

As a college student, I’m constantly thinking about my future plans. But please, don’t ask me what they are because I still have no idea. And I’m not ashamed about that either. Yes, I’m a senior in college who has yet to solidify her career goals. Totally unacceptable, right? Wrong. Even though I don’t know exactly which career I hope to pursue, I do know that I want to attend grad school to receive my Master’s degree. In fact, I think a lot of college grads hope to continue their education within some sort of graduate program. When applying for these programs, though, students are always required to include their resume – the dreaded document that chronicles your achievements as a young adult.

Basically, your resume is a literal depiction of you on paper; potential employers and grad school advisers review your resume so that they can learn all about your work experience, the leadership roles you’ve had, and the charity work that you’ve completed throughout your life. Ideally, individuals should know exactly who you are just by reading through your resume. That’s a lot of pressure, don’t you think?

Since companies and grad schools hope to discover extremely well-rounded students, college kids attempt to balance an absurd amount of extracurricular activities just so they can list these experiences on a supposedly crucial document. Apparently, it’s no longer good enough to be a student who dedicates his or her time to a single organization.

I honestly admire the students on my campus who participate in an organization, play a varsity sport, AND major in a ridiculously challenging subject. I marvel at these students because I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to balance all of those activities. I constantly feel super overwhelmed, and I’m only involved in one organization on campus. Sometimes I feel so overloaded with homework and other commitments that I don’t even have time to breathe. But then I see other students balancing schoolwork, four clubs/organizations, and a varsity sport and I feel like I have no right to be anxious.

I originally got the idea to write this article after speaking with one of my professors. He made a comment about communicating with students via email, and he ultimately said that he’s always so surprised to learn just how involved students are on campus after simply reading their email signature. This conversation got me thinking. Years ago, we probably never considered including a signature line at the bottom of our emails, or if we did, we simply included one or two mundane facts about ourselves.

Now, as older and more mature (hopefully) individuals, we choose to include a list of organizations that we’re involved in and the corresponding leadership roles we maintain within each organization as well. I’ve honestly received emails from students whose signature spanned more than ten lines. What is the purpose of this? Well, it’s all about self-branding and self-promotion. Us college students have been groomed to think that we need to present ourselves in certain ways to certain companies and graduate programs. And how do we do this? By proving that we participate in activities beyond the classroom. And how do we prove this? By listing our involvement within our emails and our resumes.

I’m concerned that this pressure we feel to become more ‘involved’ students will ultimately transform our outlook on life, if it hasn’t done so already. Shouldn’t students be encouraged to join one or two clubs that they truly care about? Wouldn’t it be more effective for students to immerse themselves in fewer activities so that they can truly make an impact on society and the greater campus community?

Unfortunately, students believe that they need to join at least five or six clubs if they hope to be recognized by grad schools and potential employers after college. So, some students simply join clubs because they sound like good ‘resume-boosters’, and even though they might only attend one meeting throughout the entire semester, they’ll still tack it onto their email signature before communicating with important people from the business world.

Of course, not every college student approaches their extracurricular activities in the same way. Some students are heavily involved in numerous organizations, and some students only participate in one. But instead of pressuring students to ‘do’ more and more, society should be telling students that it’s OKAY to devote their time to a single club or activity. I mean, it’s common sense. If you dedicate more of your time to fewer organizations, then you have an even greater opportunity to make a lasting impact on those around you.

So I guess it’s important to remind yourself why you joined the organization(s) you did in the first place. Did you join because you truly respect and care about the values and ideals of the organization, or did you join because you thought it would look good on your resume? And although that's not necessarily a bad thing, I personally believe that it’s more rewarding to see the impact I’ve made on a single organization after dedicating a large chunk of time to it on a weekly basis. But hey, that’s just me.