Talk to any senior at Clayton High School right now and the first thing they’re going to mention is how they’re drowning in their college applications: applying for scholarships, mapping out their most important activities and honors and scrambling to complete their supplemental questions.

In the past few weeks I, too, have become trapped in the process. I’ve narrowed my focus on the stress of getting everything completed by the deadline rather than the opportunities presented by the process.

Many colleges ask you to reflect on one of your extracurricular activities, explain why you’d be a good fit for their programs or elaborate on how you’ve overcome various challenges. You’re even asked to rank your activities in order of their importance to you. These requests force you to reflect on the experiences you’ve had and the many things you’ve learned throughout high school, something not to be taken lightly.

That being said, I’ve been doing lots of reflecting lately. How important is that miscellaneous club I participated in for a year? Does it outrank the job I just started? What did I learn from these opportunities?

These questions raced through my head as I attempted to rank and elaborate on my activities. But let’s consider my experience on the Globe. To start, no, I’m not going to be the next acclaimed journalist for The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, nor am I going to be comparable to these positions (for reference, my plan is to major in the STEM field). And yet, the Globe appeared at the number one spot on my activities list and was always the extracurricular I chose to elaborate on when asked.

For me, and probably anyone else on the staff, the Globe isn’t just a club you put on your resume where you practice your grammatical skills and write the occasional article. It fosters a community and encourages us to collaborate with people we might never have even given a second glance. It develops perseverance in students when they don’t get calls back about interviews and implements a sense of confidence to go after the interview with an actress, mayor or esteemed doctor. It provokes a sense of leadership in students who once never considered themselves the influential type.

We learn that our voices make a difference and deserve recognition. We take the obscene topics and offer our opinions; we aren’t afraid to take a stand. The Globe teaches its students to focus on both major and minor events around them, allowing them to stay informed and craft their own unique output on the world.

The Globe shapes its members from a club into a family. The editors’ dinners and time we spend together aren’t included in the club description, yet these are the most influential parts of being on the staff. Your initial insecurities slowly fade as these people become equivalent to your brothers and sisters.

When choosing how to rank my activities I didn’t take into consideration the ones that taught me the most obscure facts that I’ll never have to recall again, the ones that I only participated in for a short year, or even the ones that directly related to my future endeavors. The highest ranked activities taught me how to be a leader, taught me perseverance and taught me the meaning of comradery: The Globe. The most influential activities are the ones that teach you life skills, the ones that are so much more than their initial descriptions.