<p>although i haven't played any sports since freshman year of high school (i'm currently a senior), i've always enjoyed playing and i want to be involved in at least one sport in college.
how are club&intermural sports in college? i want to try crew but i don't actually have any experience in it... and i plan on doing track this spring (i wanna learn pole vaulting). do people try sports out for the first time in college? i feel like only students who have done well in high school continue on to pursue it in college...
i don't really know how this stuff works in college.
any help? :)</p>
<p>note: obviously, i'm not talking about division 1 sports.</p>
<p>Club/Intermural sports are a good way of meeting new people. I have not done any yet, but my roommate has. I would believe that he meets lots of upperclassman and are able to talk about the classes that he is taking, so in general, it’s good? Sorry, I don’t have experience in this. :[</p>
<p>If you don’t really have any experience in the sport, it would probably be better to do intramurals rather than club. A lot of club players were good high school players in their sport, but not quite good enough to do varsity in college; it is quite competitive. </p>
<p>As the above poster mentioned, they’re a good way to meet people, both guys and girls. They’re also fun too since it’s not as much about winning. I have way more fun in them than I did doing competitive soccer for my high school and club team. No practices either!</p>
<p>If you’re looking to learn a sport you haven’t tried before, another option is to take a look at the PhysEd classes your school offers. If it’s a biggish school, there’s bound to be a bunch of stuff. My school even has underwater hockey as a class haha.</p>
<p>It’s really fun. I’d say club is generally pretty competitive, so I personally prefer intramural because I suck at sports.</p>
<p>Here (Brown) I know that the crew team is always looking for people regardless of experience (or at least I assume; I feel like there are hardly any high schoolers who have ever rowed competitively), and I think it’s the same at a lot of schools (I think old timey poster Zapz does crew at his school)</p>
<p>Club and Intramural are actually pretty different as the last two posters indicated.</p>
<p>Club teams generally travel a little to compete against other schools’ club teams and also have regular practice schedules. They are essentially varsity teams just less competitive and so the time commitments are typically more flexible. For a sport like Rugby, where there is no varsity, the difference between club and varsity can get pretty blurred.</p>
<p>Intramurals are truly “recreational” teams. As mentioned, unless you’re on a competitive/serious IM team, you’re not going to have practice schedules, you’re just going to have your weekly game against another team from your school. You’ll be on a team either with friends or the athletic department will facilitate your being added to another team as a “free agent.”</p>
<p>As a girl, you are more likely to walk on to a team than a guy (title IX), but certainly it’s going to be unlikely to happen for any “traditional” sport such as track, field hockey, volleyball, basketball, soccer unless you discover a hidden talent or are simply an athletic beast (e.g. that girl from Baylor who is 6’8" whom I believe was actually a walk-on). You are much more likely to walk on to something like equestrian, fencing, or crew because the talent pools for these sports are much smaller.</p>
<p>If you’re just looking to have fun and stay active with sports, I recommend IM (and you can do multiple sports in a season) over club.</p>
<p>ummm. do they have IM track? even if they do, would they have it for pole vaulting?? There are good reasons why some of these track events are not part of high school track. They’re kind of dangerous.</p>
<p>&yeah! i was wondering the same thing about track. we actually have pole vaulting at my school… i’m going to try it this spring. i couldn’t do it before because i missed a lot of school and i missed too many practices and was falling behind in school… but i’m definitely going to try this time. but i’m pretty sure i wouldn’t be able to join the team unless there was club or im… but that seems kind of odd…?</p>
<p>The only individual sports that exist as IM at my school (and I imagine we are pretty representative) are tennis and golf. There is definitely not im t&f. I don’t think there is club team. There is a “running club” but that’s more like an interest group although obviously they go on runs.</p>
<p>You can always try out for varsity but there are no guarantees you would make it. I imagine if you are only starting as a senior that you won’t, but doesn’t hurt to try.</p>