Nobody needs an award. What awards and contests provide is a reason to sit down at the radio at an awkward hour, work a station you would otherwise pass by, and get better at pulling a callsign out of the noise. One thing to know before you start: award programs are built on confirmed contacts, not logged ones, so set up Logbook of The World first — it costs nothing and it is the difference between having worked a hundred countries and being able to prove it.
Related topics: contesting for the general introduction to contest operating, logging and QSLs for confirming contacts, and parks and summits for the POTA and SOTA programs themselves.