Growth: Expand your perspectives on yourself and your career by engaging with people outside of your academic field from all over the world. Regardless of your degree, professional or research-based, you increase your hireability and the applicability of your field of study to a wide range of career paths by exposing yourself to diverse arrays of young professionals through events and programming. You also increase your capacity to positively impact the world.

Skill-building: Leadership, time management, event planning, budgeting, public speaking, teamwork, and more! Jobs today are hiring for skills, not just degrees: a degree will help get you in the door, but your skills will be what gets you the job. Bolster your resume and professional potential by taking on organizational leadership roles. Graduate student leaders have a leg up on the competition.

Networking: You never know what connections might (literally) pay off down the road! Find your community that gives you life and makes graduate school more supportive, enriching, and exciting. The more people you know, and the more connections you make, the more opportunities open up for mentorship, development, and learning.

Mental health: Graduate school should challenge you and push you to achieve new heights you were unaware even existed. But it should also be enjoyable and fun! What’s more, studies have shown that downtime makes us more productive and engaged workers. Whatever your reasons, it’s important to diversify your time by participating in different kinds of activities and letting yourself breathe: intellectually, physically, and emotionally.