Each spring semester issue, a senior will reflect on an aspect of their experiences at Roseville High School. Marc Chappelle kicks off this first column.

What I learned in boating school is: It always seems to come back to the basics. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Avoid becoming a jack of all trades and master of none. The common phrases go on and on.

Here’s one of my own: Be brave enough to say no. At an increasing rate from freshman year through senior year, clubs and programs and opportunities pull at your ear and grapple for your time. By all means, explore what the campus has to offer. But move quickly to find what truly holds your interest, and stick to it.

If you’re weak like me, you’ll find that by the time you’ve explored your options in the way of clubs and extracurriculars on campus over the years, you’ll have gone and clung to every shiny rock with which you’ve crossed paths.

This is not a dig at the quality of any one campus offering, but one at the quality of student priorities. There’s only so much you can or should do beyond the seven-hour school day. Don’t let the extracurricular you want to hold near and dear start to fall to the wayside because you let your heart overestimate your abilities.

Past that point, you’re running on empty, whether you’re trying to attract your peers to pick up what you’re putting down in Black Student Union or stay faithful to that campus mural downstairs. These trivialities are Marc-specific. The beautiful thing is that this dynamic applies to the diversity of meaningful things RHS students pursue. The sad thing is that too many of us are in the same boat. And we let it take on water as we stretch ourselves too thinly past our academic commitments.

My friend packed frantically at the end of our English class last term, explaining how she had to bounce between three clubs in the short 30-minute lunch period. That’s a crappy situation for both her and the clubs she attended.

Despite all of our good intentions, dividing ourselves into quick thirds to make your own meeting and your best friend’s meeting and your uncle’s cousin’s daughter’s meeting doesn’t make for truly fulfilling on-campus extracurricular experiences. Allow yourself a serious amount of time to put your heart into one thing.

Campus extracurriculars are kind of like dramatic TV breakups. You’ve got too many side pieces. After a while, you should come clean and break things off. If you really want the best for that empowering club with a great mission, you’ll let it go.

Hopefully you’re reading this before it’s too late. When you commit to a relationship with a narrower set of extracurriculars, you’ll probably find a happier you with a healthier set of investments on your hands.