The Power of Joining a Club

Each new school year, a new collection of clubs come out at Interlake HS. Some are established entities like Model UN. Some are new.  

You may wonder, “what’s the best action my child should take?” Two useful tenets from former Stanford Dean of Freshman Students, Julie Lythcott-Haims are:  

• Help students develop a sense of direction 

• Help them take risks 

To be active participants of society, any individual needs to clarify her or his interests, then pick a few between many options, and invest precious time into what ideally becomes a lifelong pursuit or pursuits. Clubs can help.  

Three options to consider as guidance: 

1. Use clubs to discover a passion. 

   Find something that really matches, and use it to dive into that topic area over the next few years. It may or may not mean holding an “exec position” but if the student discovers a passion around the club’s area of focus, if this passion influences their choice of college major and college, the influence is profound and good. This is much more in their control than landing one of the few exec roles. 

2. Join a club and, perhaps but no big deal if not, ultimately take a “leadership role”. 

   This is arguably THE most common advice by a parent. We are simply looking forward to college applications – how can our child stand out? But the “exec roles” are few. More importantly, in and of themselves, the long term impact may not be that great, compared to option 1. 

3. Create a club.

   When a student cannot find a fit and feels a stubborn urge to fill the gap, creating a new entity can be a meaningful option. This option will take THE most work and may be more of a “sophomore year option” once you get the sense of how an established student-led club runs.  

But clubs are like clothing – one needs to try them out, find something that fits. 

• If it doesn’t fit, keep exploring. 

• “Speed date” the clubs. Attend a couple of sessions, and if it does not really get them fired up, then try another. 

• The portfolio of clubs is very long ( I believe >50.)