College of DuPage has a student body consisting of 28,627 students, the second largest school in the state of Illinois. In order to present itself as much more than an average community college, COD has taken steps to make itself closer and closer to a four-year institution. Like many other large institutions, COD offers clubs and competitive sports. However, unlike these other large schools, COD doesn’t offer a structured intramural sport programs for students who wish to participate in a non-competitive sporting environment.

While COD offers a plethora of competitive sports that students can join, there are currently no ways for students to participate in a non-competitive environment. This is very discouraging for many students that attend COD who may want to participate in an activity without feeling pressure to perform at a certain skill level.

Although it’s uncommon for many community colleges to offer intramural sports to its students, COD is an uncommon community college. COD’s student enrollment is higher than schools such as ISU, DePaul University and many other higher-education institutions. Almost all sizable four-year institutions offer intramural sports programs for their students to play together in. Most colleges that offer intramural sport programs to their students often have success with getting enough participants for the program. A high amount of participation among these programs means that more students are drawn closer together for an activity that they enjoy and this helps increase socialization on campus.

While many people may not have an opinion to intramural sports, there are many students, who take intramural sports offerings into consideration for their college selection. While it’s obviously not a major factor in the college decision-making process, there are many college-bound students who take into account the intramural sport programs offered because they want to know they have clubs that interest them. 

When asked about the topic of intramurals at colleges, Jordan Raineri, a student looking at different schools for the next year said, “All of the schools I’m looking at for next year offer intramurals, so I’m happy about that. I really like playing football and softball with my friends, so I’m pretty excited for a league that’s competitive, but just for fun. Intramurals aren’t a huge thing for me, but I’m just glad I’ll be able to keep myself occupied and meet new people when I’m not busy with class work.” 

With COD being college where students have to commute to attend, it makes it very challenging to be able to meet new people and form new friendships. Intramural sport programs offer students the chance to be able to socialize on the college campus.

Any students interested in starting a club has the ability to do so by getting in contact with student life and can organize the club themselves. However, the college doesn’t offer its students the opportunity to do so when it comes to starting an athletics program. This means that the large amount of students at COD who may be interested in intramurals on campus don’t have the option to start a club on their own for physical activities.

For a school that has historically been rumored to eventually evolve into a four-year school, adding intramurals for its students to participate in is a great way to start the transition into a school where students have a way to participate and not just go to school for their classes. It gives students the opportunity to participate in activities they enjoy, meet new friends on campus and a nice way to stay active.