Starting a club or group in high school or college is stressful, difficult and tiresome. But at the end of the day, you'll be glad you did it. Whatever your club might be, whether it's based around a sport, a political group or idea, a religion, a field of study, or something else entirely, it will be worth your time and energy to feel the pride of delivering the t-shirts you designed, purchased, sold and collected the money for, being respected as the leader of the group and the experience you gain by running the whole show.

Starting a club is a great resume builder. It opens the door for you to brag on yourself for all the nights you spent working on order forms, designs, worrying about how something was going to get done (when you don't want to accept that you're going to have to do it because your officers don't even show up to your meetings), how you're going to keep doing everything you're doing when you also play a sport or do another activity for a chunk of the year, etc. It also gives you the opportunity to discuss whatever the topic of your club was. For example, "I see on your resume that you started a ping pong club, what do you know about ping pong?"

Let me tell you, after three years of running a ping pong club, I know a lot about ping pong. Be warned: if you start a sports-oriented club and you're really the only person running it, don't expect to get to play much, or at least not enough to become very good at it. To use myself as an example again, I know a lot about ping pong, the rules of ping pong (from settling point disputes), ping pong tables, paddles, balls, etc., but I'm not all that great at actually playing ping pong. I was too busy keeping score, taking t-shirt orders, making sure everyone gets to play and so on.

Be prepared to handle the stress of working hard for months on end to fundraising for equipment or something your club needs (a new ping pong table in my case). Purchase it just before you leave for summer as a parting gift, just to have it broken at the beginning of the next school year. Be prepared to handle the stress. But also, be prepared to feel fantastic and immensely proud of yourself for running or starting the club, because you'll know that everyone who comes to your meetings every week can be there because of you. All the fun that everyone is having is because of you, the experience everyone has and gains through the club is because of you, and it will still be because of you years later when the club is still going.

With this in mind, I advise the reader (if given the opportunity) to start a club, run for office, or at least join a group while you're still in school. And if you're at Marshall High School, get the Ping Pong Club up and running again.