Motivational Activities for College Students

Interactive Q&A

This is an activity you can adapt as you wish. Split students into groups and let them come up with questions. You can give each one a chance to ask questions and provide assistance with the answers when needed. This will enable the students to play as a team and actively learn at the same time.

Encourage communication by asking the first couple of questions. Keep the question easy and simple but ask for extended answers. Don’t be afraid to get off topic and expand the subject a bit. Let your students share questions and doubts even if they’re in contrast with your class subject.

Quizzes are also fun activities for college students. Include them in Q&A sessions by splitting the students into teams and let them compete with each other. You can choose the judge or someone to keep score, so they don’t see you as an authority. Let them organize themselves and be there to offer assistance and guidance.

Group discussions

If you don’t know how to motivate college students to participate more in class, here’s one classic idea. Organize a group discussion about the subject you’re currently working on. Discussions will increase students’ interests and engagement while also giving you feedback on what needs to be improved in the classroom. Students will develop speaking skills and learn how to form an argument.

The best way to engage students is to let them choose the subject. You can recommend some topics and encourage them to give more recommendations. After that, have a vote and choose next week’s topic. This will give students a chance to discuss the most interesting things which means they are more likely to engage. Also, it will teach them to value everyone’s opinion.

There are various topics you can discuss. Science students can talk about the best methods of conducting research and experiments, the latest discoveries and hypotheses, things not explained in the textbooks, etc. Students of humanities and social sciences can choose historical subjects or contemporary problems for discussion.

Scavenger Hunt

Games like scavenger hunt are the best entertainment activities for college students because they are not just futile fun. The game of treasure hunt enhances critical thinking, builds team spirit and develops problem-solving skills because students need to think-out-of-the-box for a chance of winning.

Although scavenger hunt requires a lot of preparations beforehand, it’s not complicated as it seems. Once you acquire all the needed resources, you can use them multiple times (with different groups of course). Question cards, audio materials, and other resources should be related to your subject. Scatter clues around the classroom before students come and the game can begin. If you haven’t organized a scavenger hunt before, check out this video for all the needed information.

Icebreakers

At the beginning of the school year, students don’t know each other, so it’s wise to organize activities that can help them relax and introduce themselves. Some icebreakers are excellent for the first day of class and others can be used to make students comfortable when working in teams. Use these activities whenever you need to “break the tension” and make an encouraging working environment.

Complete the sentence

This is a quick game and it can be played in a variety of ways. Start a sentence and ask one student to finish it. That student will start another sentence and pick one of his/her colleagues to continue. This game can be played in teams or small groups too. Then multiple people could finish the sentences and compare the answers.

Choose engaging sentences like:

• In my free time, I like to…
• The most fascinating thing about my home town is…
• After college, I would like to…
• The person I admire is…

Questions in a line

Divide the students into two groups and form two lines. Every student should have a partner that is standing in front of him/her. If there’s an odd number of students, you could fill in. Start conversations with the person across from you and change partners every couple of minutes.

Ask interesting questions that are not too personal. For example:

• What are your hobbies?
• Do you like to travel?
• What’s your favorite band?

Pick a side

Have the students choose between dichotomies. After the group is formed, discuss the options they chose. Make sure to keep the light atmosphere in the room, so stay out of politics, religion, and other controversial topics.

Play something like:

• Chocolate vs strawberry
• Country vs pop 
• 007 vs Batman
• Morning vs night

Self-motivation and individual activities

It’s not easy to motivate yourself. Driving yourself to work towards achieving your goals is an everyday task. Self-motivation is driven by your actions. You’ll be motivated to do more if you first put effort into building the right mindset. It’s a full circle of progression. You need to start with:

• Setting high and realistic goals
• Taking risks
• Seeking feedback from others
• Actively searching for opportunities
• Accepting difficulties and setbacks that occur
• Learning and acquiring knowledge
• Surrounding yourself with supportive and enthusiastic people
• Identifying your strength and weaknesses
• Working on time management skills

To achieve some of this we singled out these personality development activities for college students. Be sure to check out the activities below to enhance your self-motivation.

Fortunately – Unfortunately

Create a series of statements about your life. The first sentence should start with “Fortunately” to emphasize something positive in your life. Then you come up with a negative statement, and alternate between them. Finish the exercise with a positive statement. That can help you build an optimistic mindset. This activity will boost your creativity and storytelling skills. It’s also very useful for analyzing your development through time, so you can be motivated to perform even better in the future.

Journaling

Write your thoughts. Collect them in a notebook, so you can let your creative talents loose. You could write “morning pages” which are basically just stream-of-consciousness on paper. Writing your thoughts as soon as you wake up can help you declutter your mind and start your day fresh.

You can also keep an old-school journal with notes about events and feelings. By reading about your experience, you’ll see your progress through time. That will help you put things into perspective and think clearly about new challenges in life.

Other activities

Any activity that helps you understand yourself better is useful for building up motivation. Creating a bucket list, meditating or working out will surely help you be more productive. The important thing is to have some “alone” time, so you can be focused on your self-growth.

Conclusion

In this article we tried to include a variety of activities. Hopefully, some of them will suit your needs. Whether you want to get more motivated or want to inspire others, you now have a place to start. You can also get more motivated if you try some of the generosity activities for adults, we recommended. Be sure to check that out and you might find something that would be inspiring for you.

If you know someone who needs a little boost, maybe you can inspire him/her with a gift. Check out our articles on Cool gifts for grad students.