▶ Your Answer :
A large number of people might argue that traveling and joining a sports team are the best way for students to make new friends. Contrary to popular belief, I believe that the best method is to participating in community activities for two reasons: broadening one's perspective and relieving stress.
To begin with, joining in a community activities allows students to broaden one's horizon and to learn to socialize with others. This is attributed to the fact that the activity exposes them to different world of lifestyles, basic customs, and cultures. Through this experience, they can learn to embrace diversity. This is especially true given the fact that modern society is becoming increasingly globalized. For instance, when I was in eleventh grade, there was a Malaysian girl who brought home-cooked meals, such as 'Nasillamak', which is a Malaysian traditional food, for lunch. It smelled funny and she ate with her hands without using utensils, and other students kept their distances from her who had never seen such a thing before. Nevertheless, I felt comfortable with it because when I went to Malaysia for community activities, I could experience the country's custom. This indicates that participating in community activities allow students to have a foreign friend.
Furthermore, the performances that require students to help others via involving in community activities enable students to lower their stress level, and thus having more friends. This is due to the fact that such activities can distract people from worries and stress. It is obvious that the activity can distract them from personal worries and concern since they have to care the people in desperate needs. Therefore, this kind work may actually serve as a safety valve to let off some steam as well as a fun way to recharge energy. According to the Ministry of Education of Korea in 2010, there was a huge difference between two groups of students in managing their academic pressure. Students in Group A who frequently engaged in community service activity have much less stress level than those in Group B who rarely engaged in the activity. The reaserchers also found out that those in Group A had more friends than those in Group B. The reason is that the people who were helped by the students wished to become a friend of the students. Even after the end of the community service, they wrote mails to each other for a long period of time. This implies that the activity serve as a safe and effective way to make friend as well as to let out stress.
In brief, although traveling and joining a sports team could be a good way to socialize and to make friends, the effectiveness of making friends by involving in community activities far-outweigh the effectiveness of making friends through prior two methods. All in all, the importance of community service activities cannot be underestimated for the sake of creating healthy relationship. |