Harvard Students Should Stop Taking Extracurriculars So Seriously

Extracurricular activities are, like many things at Harvard, intense.

At the beginning of every school year, freshmen gather like locusts at the Student Organization Fair, swarming a Tercentenary Theatre filled with folding tables and what feel like endless rows of tri-folds. If there’s a three-hour period that could encapsulate the culture of extracurriculars at Harvard, it’s this one: Every club is big, loud, and more important than all the rest.

What those freshmen don’t see behind the plucky smiles and silly posters are the lengthy and often ridiculous application processes soon to be thrust upon them. You may be applying for Model UN, but it feels like you’re applying to become a member state.

From one view, the infamous comp processes demonstrate Harvard students’ steadfast commitment to extracurriculars. From another, it shows how careerism, ego, and competitiveness can gatekeep vital aspects of the collegiate experience, often locking it behind years of experience and unreasonable expectations of commitment.

Extracurriculars are vitally important. I know firsthand. Alongside writing for The Crimson, I pour hours of work every week into college theatre, an experience that has been incomparably formative for me. It has allowed me to engage in what I am passionate about, given me practical skills for my future, and made me lifelong friends.

But extracurriculars need to change.

I joined the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club in my freshman year as an actor. I’ve been acting since I was eight and have performed in dozens of plays, a handful of musicals, and a commercial. I’ve had years of training, and yet when I arrived at Harvard, I still found it difficult to get parts. This semester was the first in which I sat behind an audition table instead of standing nervously in front of it.

But sitting there, judging, I felt a new kind of discomfort. I saw over 50 actors, many my friends, stand in front of me and audition, singing a song, dancing a dance, acting a side. I could feel their nervous energy in how they fumbled with their papers, their panic when they forgot the lyrics to the song they had practiced for hours.

From the other side of the Harvard club scene, I can say unequivocally that our extracurriculars are too competitive, and — besides causing students needless anxiety — it’s making it extremely difficult for students to push themselves out of their comfort zone and try something new.

In the world of Harvard theatre, it ends in a few clubs fighting over the same handful of students, most of whom have spent their lives training for perfection. And if you are lucky enough to be the creme de la creme of talent, you are asked to commit to a schedule that ranges from 10 to 50 hours a week.

Theatre is, perhaps, an extreme example. But it holds true for many extracurriculars at Harvard.

In my freshman year, I tried out for Model UN, an activity in which I had no experience. I grew up in a small town in Colorado and attended an underfunded high school where extracurricular opportunities were slim. We had no Model UN, mock trial, or consulting or computer science groups. When I got to college, I thought it would be different — the world was, finally, my oyster.

For Model UN, I submitted an application, attended rounds of interviews, and finally a mock committee. The process was long, exhausting, and confusing. I had no idea what to do, and I was surrounded by kids who had competed in Model UN for eight years. I left that mock committee feeling deflated, defeated, and ready to never think about the United Nations again.

I’m glad that I had passions going into college. So many of the memories I’ve had at college have been in the Loeb Drama Center, or at 14P (what we affectionately call The Crimson’s home on 14 Plympton St.). But I wouldn’t have gotten any of those memories, made any of those friends, or learned the many lessons I’ve learned outside of the classroom these past three years if I had, simply, wanted a new hobby. I might not have had the opportunity to participate in — and learn and grow from — extracurriculars at all.

Students should work to create extracurricular experiences accessible to newcomers and that don’t demand everything you have. We have an obligation, in short, to take extracurriculars less seriously.

Instead of obsessing over meritocratic deliberations and having the most talented membership, we should work on fostering community and creating healthy environments for learning. Clubs are for students to have a safe space to explore, learn, grow, and become interesting adults with varied hobbies and interests — not for a select few to compete over their years and years of experience.

Extracurriculars at Harvard must change. We all deserve a hobby.

Correction: September 14, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the author had attended a mock general assembly in the course of applying for a Model United Nations team. In fact, he had attended a mock committee.

Vander O.B. Ritchie ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a History and Philosophy concentrator in Leverett House