60 Extracurricular Activities Examples for High School Students in 2027 (By Category and Skill)

Oct 4

Updated November 2026

TL;DR

Here are 60 extracurricular activities examples in ten categories: student leadership, competition and academic teams, writing and media, business and entrepreneurship, technology, arts and performance, sports and the outdoors, community service, work experience and independent projects. Each lists the career skill it builds, and every category includes at least one free or at-home option. Pick two, commit to them for a full year and keep a running note of what you produced and what changed because of you.

Most lists of extracurricular examples run to hundreds of entries and leave you scrolling. What sets an extracurricular apart isn't how impressive it sounds; it's whether you can point at something you finished afterward. Skim the category headings, then pick the two or three that interest you.

Want to go deeper? See Ladder's lists of the 15 best extracurricular activities, free extracurricular programs and online extracurriculars you can do from anywhere.

What are the main types of extracurricular activities?

Here are the ten categories, the core skill each builds and the easiest way in.

Category	Core skill it builds	Easiest free start
Student leadership	Managing people and stakeholders	Founding your own club
Competition and academic teams	Thinking under pressure	Math club or a science fair project
Writing and media	Communicating to deadlines	Your own newsletter or blog
Business and entrepreneurship	Pricing, selling and persuading	A freelance service
Technology and building	Building and shipping	A small app for your school
Arts and performance	Producing work and taking critique	Designing for other clubs
Sports and outdoors	Discipline and reliability	A self-run training plan
Community service	Reliability and empathy	Remote volunteering
Work experience	Working for someone else	A part-time job
Independent projects	Finishing without a syllabus	A public data project

What makes an extracurricular activity stand out?

Two students spend two years in the same debate club: one says "member," the other says they ran the training program, grew it from 9 to 26 students and wrote materials the club still uses. Same activity, same hours, but only one produced something others can see.

That's also the difference between a club and work experience. A club is yours to shape, so nobody depends on you; real work comes with a deadline you didn't set and someone who notices if you miss it.

Student leadership extracurricular activities examples

These build stakeholder management, ordered roughly from easiest to hardest to start.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
1. Class or homeroom rep	Gathering opinions from people who disagree	Usually just volunteer
2. Founding your own club	Operations from scratch	Free; find a teacher sponsor
3. Peer tutoring coordinator	Matching supply to demand	Easy if your school has a program
4. Orientation leader or peer mentor	Explaining things to newcomers	Usually a spring application
5. Event committee lead	Project management with a budget and hard date	Easy to join, harder to lead
6. Student council	Balancing students and administrators	Win an election; plan a year ahead

Competition and academic team extracurricular activities examples

These train you to think under time pressure and test your own reasoning.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
7. Quiz bowl	Fast recall and confident answers	Low cost, beginner-friendly
8. Math olympiad or math club	Sitting with unsolved problems	Free; practice problems online
9. Science olympiad or science fair	Experimental design and recordkeeping	A fair project can be solo
10. Business case competitions	Recommending under a deadline	Several are free and online
11. Model UN	Research and negotiation	Usually open; travel costs vary
12. Debate	Building and attacking arguments	Regular weekend tournaments

Writing, media and journalism extracurricular activities examples

These build communication skills that carry into PR, research and marketing.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
13. Your own newsletter or blog	Writing consistently with no one making you	Free on platforms like Substack
14. A podcast	Cold outreach and interviewing	A phone mic and free editing software
15. Literary magazine	Editorial judgment	Easy to join or start
16. School newspaper	Interviewing and fact-checking to deadline	Usually open to anyone
17. School broadcast or social team	Writing for a real audience, with review	Low barrier
18. Yearbook	Production management on a fixed date	Good fit if you like logistics

Business and entrepreneurship extracurricular activities examples

These teach you how money, customers and persuasion actually work.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
19. A freelance service	Pricing your time, handling clients	Free; tutoring, design or dog walking
20. A resale or handmade business	Unit economics	Start with items you own
21. A fundraising campaign	Persuasion with a target number	Pick a cause you care about
22. Investment or finance club	Research and being wrong in public	Free simulators exist
23. Pitch competitions	Compressing an idea and defending it	Many are free to enter
24. DECA, FBLA or Junior Achievement	Structured business competition	Modest dues; chapters are common

Technology and building extracurricular activities examples

These produce something people can open and use, which beats any certificate.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
25. Shipping a small app or website	Solving a real problem for real users	Free; get five people using it
26. Cybersecurity capture-the-flag	Systematic investigation	picoCTF runs free in a browser
27. Open-source contributions	How professional code gets reviewed	A docs fix is a real first contribution
28. Coding club or hackathons	The full build-and-ship cycle	Many are free and online
29. Maker or 3D printing club	Prototyping	Depends on school or library equipment
30. Robotics team	Engineering under constraints	Time-heavy; often needs sponsors

Arts and performance extracurricular activities examples

These build presence, collaboration and the ability to take critique.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
31. Designing for other clubs	Building a portfolio and reputation	Free with tools like Canva
32. Film or video production	Holding attention for 90 seconds	A phone and free editing software
33. A visual art portfolio	Working in series, accepting critique	Drawing is close to free
34. Theater, onstage or backstage	Performing or running a production	Auditions, or open crew sign-up
35. Dance team	Precision and taking correction	Costs vary widely
36. Band, orchestra or choir	Collaboration over years	High time commitment

Sports, fitness and outdoor extracurricular activities examples

These show the discipline of showing up to something hard on a schedule.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
37. A self-run training plan	Finishing what you start	Free; log every session
38. An individual sport	Competing against your own numbers	Running costs only shoes
39. Intramural or rec leagues	Coordinating and losing gracefully	Cheap and open
40. Coaching or refereeing kids	Authority with people who didn't ask	Often paid; local leagues need officials
41. Outdoor club or scouting	Logistics and risk assessment	Scouting has clear progression
42. A school team sport	Commitment on a fixed schedule	Tryouts; evenings during season

Community service extracurricular activities examples

These build reliability, the quality organizations remember most.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
43. Remote volunteering	Self-managed contribution	Free transcription or citizen-science sites
44. Community tutoring	Understanding by teaching	Free and always in demand
45. Food bank or shelter shifts	Reliability over time	Walk in and ask
46. Cleanups or conservation groups	Field work and data collection	Usually free, on weekends
47. Running a local campaign	Organizing: persuasion plus logistics	Pick one concrete change
48. Hospital or library volunteering	A supervised look at a workplace	Applications and age minimums

Work experience and internship extracurricular activities examples

These come with someone else's deadline, which teaches what self-directed work can't.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
49. A part-time job	Shift reliability, customer handling	Apply anywhere hiring
50. Working in a family business	Inventory, customers or bookkeeping	Available now if it applies
51. Virtual job simulations	Testing a field in a few hours	Free programs like Forage
52. Job shadowing	Seeing a career up close	Through family or a school coordinator
53. Research assistant work	Academic research methods	Email professors; expect few replies
54. A remote internship	Real project, real timeline	Competitive; prepare a strong application

Independent project extracurricular activities examples

You can start any of these this week, and each proves you can work without a syllabus.

Activity	Skill it builds	How to start
55. Organizing one event yourself	Complete ownership	Fits in a weekend
56. A public data project	Question to published answer	Use a free dataset
57. A free professional certification	Finishing a structured course alone	Analytics, marketing or cloud basics
58. Building a niche audience	Positioning and feedback loops	Post consistently on one topic
59. A self-directed research paper	Defending an answer at length	Pick a narrow question
60. Learning a language to a usable level	A skill that's clear on any resume	Free apps plus conversation practice

How do you choose the right extracurricular activities?

Run the list through three filters, in order:

Cut anything you'd dread on a Tuesday in February, because enthusiasm in September proves nothing.
Check it against your actual week, since two activities done well beat six done badly.
Work backward from a career you're curious about to the skill it needs, like one building activity and one that makes you present.

Two or three is the right number, and one should make you slightly uncomfortable. If you quit something in November, that's a cheap lesson; keep a short record of what each activity taught you.

Do extracurricular activities matter for college and careers?

Yes, when they leave you with something finished and a story about how you got there. Most of these 60 build the same handful of skills: finishing things, working with people who aren't your friends, explaining your reasoning, handling a budget or deadline and staying with a hard problem.

Clubs rarely fire anyone, so you're still grading your own work. For a version where someone depends on what you deliver, Ladder Internships places high school students in remote, eight-week start-up internships, where they work on a real project with a company coach, with full financial aid available.

Common questions about extracurricular activities examples

What is the best example of an extracurricular activity?

There isn't one. The closest universal answer is whichever activity you stay with long enough to become responsible for part of it.

What are the five types of extracurricular activities?

Most sources group them as academic, athletic, artistic, service and leadership. That misses paid work and independent projects, which is why this list uses ten categories.

Do hobbies count as extracurriculars?

Yes, once there's evidence outside your own head. Playing guitar alone is a hobby; playing in a band, teaching beginners or posting your arrangements is an activity someone can verify.

Which extracurricular gives you real work experience?

A remote internship on a real project. Ladder Internships runs remote, eight-week start-up internships for high school students worldwide, at 5 to 10 hours a week, with a company coach and full financial aid available. The next deadline is November 15, 2026, for the Winter I cohort starting December 7, 2026.

Dhruva Bhat

Dhruva Bhat is one of the co-founders of Ladder, and a Harvard College graduate. Dhruva founded Ladder Internships as a DPhil candidate and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, with a vision to bridge the gap between ambitious students and real-world startup experiences.