As freshmen walk through the doors on their first day of school, they are bombarded with posters and signs for all the different activities and clubs Jones offers. Comedy Club, Who Crew, Neuroscience Club – there really is a club for everything. Administrators boast to the students about how many clubs are offered for all interests, and that even if you can’t find one you that fits your needs already in existence, it is very easy to just start your own! Joining a club can be a great way to get involved at school, but there comes a lot of problems with having too many clubs out there.

Jones has over 70 clubs listed on the homework website – and that’s not even all of them. Don’t get me wrong, having a lot of options to choose from can be a great thing for new students trying to find their place in the school, but it can easily be overwhelming, and honestly, quite unnecessary. Many of the clubs could be combined due to their similar interests and goals in order to create a club with a strong following. A fair amount of the clubs Jones offers are service clubs that could easily work together in order for students to be involved in different service activities without the hassle of dealing with multiple schedules for multiple clubs.

One reason there are so many clubs at Jones, is because it is extremely easy to start a club. All you need is an idea, a sponsor, and a couple of signatures from other students and you are good to go. You can pretty much start a club for anything, which many people take advantage of. We’ve had clubs for aquariums, comic books, and even Ramen noodles. You can have a club for anything in your wildest dreams – we even have a club for dreaming.

For some of the clubs started, there isn’t a great passion about the club’s topic, students just want to start a club to be able to add another activity to college applications. We put so much pressure on having leadership and participation in multiple clubs on college applications that people are starting clubs just to add to their resume. They want it to read “Jane Doe – President and Founder of Insert Club Here”, just because it looks impressive to the people reading college applications. After its on the applications, many clubs are abandoned after a few meetings. Because of this,  I’m sure not all 70+ clubs listed on the Jones website are still active.

They could be abandoned because of lack of communication, as well. After a club is formed, getting the word out to the entire school can be difficult, and many clubs that are actually around for a while aren’t always advertised to everyone, and can be exclusive. A club will end up turning into the same group of friends hanging out, not necessarily closing their doors on anyone, it’s just not easy for other people to know the club exists or really when it meets.

Having copious amounts of clubs can be great, but we should worry about the quality of the clubs first.