Extra and co curricular activities

In today's world, it is just as important to have a good extra and co curricular performance as having a good academic degree. Taking part in every event, fest or any competition can be useful in your own personal development as well as another skill in your skill set. I have only taken part in some of the events, counting up to 9 in 5 semesters even though i have not won any but i always got to learn something from each one of them.But if there is one thing that does disappoint me is the lack of participation. Many of my batch mates do not show so much interest. There are people from my batch and class who have taken part and won many events,hackathons but there is still a lack of interest still lurking. Maybe the idea of not missing classes, maybe a lack of enthusiasm or even stating the events as not worthy are some of the reasons. Some of my batch mates told that they only wish to get a good academic score and get a job in a company or corporation. These sort of events like hackathons, tech events,tech quizzes, debates,etc.,are what can be useful in developing leadership skills, communication skills,body language, manners, etiquettes and all those abilities which are needed and come in handy in moving forward in the technical industry. Not just in mine but also in other colleges. While ther results produced might be up to the mark in certain colleges but not across all colleges. In one of my friend's college, the senior students of sem 7 were actually coming to the class requesting the juniors of year 2 and 3 to take part in handling activities and participating in the technical club events and activities. The teacher who came with the seniors was very angry. The reason being hat they have never had to invite or ask the students before. The students would themselves come and take up the onus of the club and extra curricular acticities. At first listening to it made me giggle but then i understood that this is a serious matter. With our country having the largest number of engineers and so many of them unemployed or not highly productive in their work, these are the things that can make the difference. These out of academics courses,events and even talks given by guest lecturers increase the skill set and help the students in increasing their awareness, knowledge and skill set. Also with Bangalore being the IT capital of India, we neeed to increase the enthusiasm levels and we can surely expect even better results, better graduates and better champions and happier engineers by letting them know that academic score is not the be all and end all of B.E. More participation in extra courses, events and increased club activity is the way forward.