CHS Portfolio

Extracurricular Experience

Describe the activities you have participated in. These might include sports, ASB, clubs, theater,
church groups, or other organized activities outside of regular school hours.
I have been a midfielder and defender on my high school girls soccer team. I am part of the
backbone of my team and I help run our defense line. I also help show our new players all of
our drills, warm-ups, workouts and conditioning “tips”.

On average, how many hours do you dedicate to your extracurricular life each week or month?
On average, I spend about 15+ hours a week during the season. Two and a half hours at each
practice on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Plus the 80-minute games every Tuesday and
Thursday. And the additional 3+ hours painting our football field 2x a week so that we can see
our lines before our home games. And not to mention all the at-home drills and workouts I do.

Have you enjoyed your extracurricular experiences so far? Why or why not?
Yes, I have truly become a family with my teammates and our boy’s soccer team. We spend
every day together from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and sometimes longer depending on if our field
needs to be painted. I love playing soccer and I am very happy with my four teammates I
started playing with and all of our bus rides back home. I especially love cheering on our
teams and having the other athletes cheer us on just like we do to them.

What kinds of soft skills, academic skills, and/or specialized training have you needed to use to
participate fully in these experiences?
I have had to really use teamwork and collaboration while playing soccer. I had to rely on my
teammates to be there for me and vise versa. I was able to learn how each one of my
teammates play and know each one of their abilities. The ability to communicate is also
another big soft skill I needed to learn very quickly. I had to speak with my teammates about
where I need the ball and where they need it. We all had to learn how to read the plays and
scan the field quickly to give our forwards and other midfielders the ball. If we hadn’t learned
to read one another, we would’ve lost every single game.

How might these skills be used in a career or college environment?

CHS Portfolio

Teamwork is very important in almost any job so that soft

skills will benefit me. You need to be able to communicate with your coworkers and bosses.
When I go off to college, I am going to have to rely on myself to speak up and work well with
my teachers and colleagues.

What have you learned about yourself so far by participating in extracurricular activities?
I have learned that everyone has their own pace. Everyone will learn the drills at a different
pace before the muscle memory kicks in. It is very important to motivate everyone on the team
because at the end of the day, you will do liners and punishments together. I also learned that
patience is a major factor in how quickly you learn to kick, shoot, send, and trap the ball. It is
going to take time before you know how to curve the ball and can trap it in the air. It took me
a very long time before I learned how to actually trap-turn-send the ball across the field. I see
a lot of the new players struggle with this as well and I have to always remind them that
patience is very important because you are not just going to know how to perfectly send a
good, long, hard pass to your sprinting teammate and have that pass be at the perfect angle in
which they can shoot and score.