A friend of mine has recently had many interviews with companies interested in hiring him after he completes his degree next year. When I asked him about the interviews, he told me that they were essentially the same questions each time, and he felt pretty confident that he could give a favorable answer when they were asked.

Something he did not expect, though luckily enough was well-prepared for, was being asked to describe his activities outside of school. To me, this shows the importance of how we spend our time while attending college. 

I feel that it is very important to use the time we have that is not taken up by class and studying in productive ways that involve the things that interest us personally.

Being involved in college is important, and as students we need to focus on what we do outside of class. This is not only true because it helps us to be more well-rounded as individuals in general, but it is a great asset in securing our future.

One way I have seen this demonstrated involves a girl I know well who has an excellent academic record. This has helped employers become interested and request interviews with her. However, on multiple occasions during interviews she has been asked, not unexpectedly, what things she is involved in outside of classes. Unfortunately her answer was always a short one, and one can easily guess that the interest the potential employers had in her was lessened. 

Why should this be? Should academic performance be enough to secure a career? Perhaps it used to be, but I do not think that is enough anymore. Employers have many more well-qualified candidates to chose from, and there must be something that sets apart the outstanding applicants from the ones that will likely perform well.

Something we greatly value here in the United States is individualism; the respect our culture has for uniqueness is one reason I am proud to be an American. 

With respect to the overall history of the practice of employing college graduates, companies have just recently started to realize that the ability to hire creative people leads to tremendously significant results. This is why companies have began to implement policies such as Google’s 80/20 rule, where its employees are expected to spend 80 percent of their time working on what the company has assigned them and has the freedom to use 20 percent of their time working on their own personal projects.

For Google, this has led to things of significant value like Gmail, Google News and AdSense, the technology it uses to target users with relevant advertisements. Smart employers are not looking for great workers, they are looking for great people. 

The ability to get good grades indicates something very specific and noteworthy, and extracurricular involvement, too, shows something valuable to employers.

Advisers to students seeking jobs or internships regularly advise spending free time productively during college. Being involved in outside activities can also help fill in your resume. A website dedicated to helping job-seekers, cvtips.com, says: “An employer may ask you a range of questions to establish your level of skill and experience in these areas. Any gap with regards to actual work experience can be filled with discussion of any extra curricular activities you participated in instead.”

Becoming involved in any outside venture almost universally leads to experience in working with other people, which employers value above almost every other trait. As said in the article “Employer Assessment of the College Graduate: What Advisors Need to Know,” published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Natural and Life Sciences Education: “Most jobs require an ability to work well with others and communicate to others effectively. Academic achievement does not necessarily require social and communication skills, and some may feel the two are negatively correlated. Other employers target a different type of intelligence that grades do not reflect.”

When you make an effort to explore the things that interest you, it shows that you are ambitious and driven enough to pursue things that you enjoy without expecting anything in return, and that is something to be admired, especially by potential employers.