Complementary Hobbies

Hobbies can complement not just our educational endeavors but also our own lives. Hobbies can push us out of our comfort zones, encouraging us to grow in new and unique ways.

By Paul Merimee — October 26, 2022

Tags: hobbies, hobby, résumé

Throughout our lives we likely have all found hobbies that we enjoy. It can be tempting to think of hobbies as something unrelated to the other aspects of our lives as if they are sacred and should not be tied up with the messiness of the every day. However, it is a mistake to think of them as distractions or an escape. They can provide balance to our professional or educational lives, refreshing us so that we can more fully tackle an assignment, meeting, or something else. In college, they can also boost our resume and, more importantly, make us into more well-rounded individuals.

I should stress that this is not a call to change your hobbies completely. Hobbies should primarily be things we enjoy doing. If we don't, then they are doing us no good. If you have room for another hobby or are growing tired of a current one, this article can give you a good guideline for your next hobby of choice.

What are complementary hobbies?

Complementary hobbies fit well with your chosen career, lifestyle, or educational path. They add depth and contrast to who you are and what you do. For example, a computer programmer might choose to lift weights to offset sitting at a desk, or a football player might decide to join a book club or play Dungeons and Dragons (a hobby that several NFL players embrace). These hobbies do not have to complement purely physically, like the example of the lifting weight, but can also complement mentally. For example, an accountant, whose analytical and logical skills are constantly tested, might read fantasy novels as a hobby, feeding their imagination and creativity.

Hobbies as a resume boost.

You can use your hobbies to show a school board or hiring board the depth of your character or life. It can provide a necessary boost to your application and give you an edge against other applicants. A medical school likely sees hundreds of applications that look identical each year: biology/chem major, volunteered at the food pantry/research lab, shadowed at a local hospital, worked as a patient care associate. If I have accidentally described your medical school application, I apologize. This is not to say that it is a poor application. On the contrary, there is a reason it is commonly seen. However, adding work experience as a car mechanic or volunteer experience as a soccer coach will make an application stand out among the others and spark some curiosity about the applicant.

Hobbies can broaden your perspective.

Exploring hobbies outside of your specific niche, whether civil engineering, philosophy, microbiology, history, etc., can give you a new outlook on your niche. This can also give you the necessary relief from banging your head against the same thing day in and day out. For example, say you are pursuing an education in early Greek literature and are working your way through the Odyssey. Going on a rafting trip, canoeing trip, or sailing trip can help you more fully understand the trials Odysseus underwent and give you a unique, experiential tie to the titular character. It is in this way that hobbies can complement not just our educational endeavors but also our own lives.

Hobbies can enrich our lives.

As I said at the start, hobbies should fundamentally bring us enjoyment. They can be an outlet for us, unhindered by the stressors of school or employment. Hobbies can push us out of our comfort zones, encouraging us to grow in new and unique ways. For example, while going through my undergraduate, I took up rock climbing. I had been a runner in high school, but through rock climbing, I learned much more about perseverance, patience, and my physical limitations. It also opened me up to an entirely new friend group. More than that, I learned to love the sport and even worked as a climbing instructor for a time. Climbing has not just benefited me physically, mentally, and emotionally, but through a weird turn of events, it even afforded me a temporary job.

As a final disclaimer, I should mention that hobbies, even beneficial ones, should not take away from current pursuits. Defining them as complementary makes it clear that they should add to our education or work and not detract from it. As most people know, hobbies can quickly overshadow everything else, which is detrimental to life and well-being. Even a healthy hobby can end up like that, so it is important to set boundaries and priorities around school, work, and hobbies.

Hobbies should not be considered distractions or an escape from day-to-day struggles. While they are that, they can also give depth to our resumes, broaden our perspectives, and en rich our lives. Don't make the mistake of writing off your hobbies. Spend time focusing on them and developing them alongside your education or career.

Paul Merimee

Paul Merimee grew up in sunny and vibrant Cleveland, Ohio with his eight siblings. In his early years Paul loved to read, voraciously consuming anything that had an engaging front cover at the library. Paul wanted to be a software engineer, not an author. He somehow ended up going to a small, liberal arts college in the middle of Wyoming. It was there that he was introduced to the great writers like Homer, Dostoevsky, Aristotle, and more.

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