The leisure and recreation opportunities that are offered at NWU focus more on sports activities like rugby, tennis, hockey, netball, soccer, cricket, softball, athletics tracks and a swimming pool. Compared to other USA universities like Harvard university which offer recreation and leisure opportunities like baseball, basketball, crew, cross-country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rugby, sailing, skiing, soccer, softball, squash, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, wrestling,   aikido, archery, badminton, ballroom dance, bodybuilding, bowling, boxing,  cheerleading, cycling, fencing, figure skating, hapkido, juggling, jujitsu, kendo, lacrosse, polo, karate, table tennis, tae kwo do, etc. These activities fall in the recreation and leisure categories of outdoor adventures, crafts, sports, athletics, aquatics, to name a few.

In terms of the NWU offering only sport activities it is understandable that sports do not only help to stay active, make new friends, and be involved in something besides school, but it’s also a great way to improve your academic performance. Sport activities improve cognitive functioning as well as overall psychological well-being of students, helping them achieve ambitious academic goals. However, the NWU does not offer students enough leisure and recreation activities to choose the type of activity they like most and enjoy, because not everyone is into sports.

Other students might also enjoy individual sports or other organized activities that can boost fitness, such as: swimming, horseback riding, dance classes, inline skating cycling, cheerleading, hiking , golf, tennis , fencing, gymnastics, martial arts, yoga and other fitness classes. The USA universities offer students variety of opportunities to choose from which is good for students’ development. The NWU favors only those who are into sport, which leads to others left out and having nothing to do. Which may lead to high rate of students having stress, anxiety, health problems and not being productive in their academics and less life satisfaction.