What counts as extracurricular activity?

Lost_Realist · #1 11-02-2009, 01:29 PM

Yeah, I'm finishing up my grad school application and one tiny problem. I was never really involved in too many extracurricular activities at college. Like I wasn't in Student Government, or a club, or the newspaper or whatever. I did a lot of stuff on my own, but I don't really know what's good to use.

I do tutoring on my own(which I'm using already), I volunteer as a webmaster for a local sports group(does that even count), I help friends and family with their computer problems... other than that, I dunno. I did join this one professional group for a while after I graduated, but I left after about a year or so.

I've never been a big volunteering type. Nothing has really ever interested me enough to volunteer for. Now it's coming back to bite me on the bottom.

Help?

FishOutOfWater · #2 11-02-2009, 03:11 PM

I'm not sure what type of graduate school you're applying to, but my programs didn't really care about extracurricular activities. They wanted me to list any work I'd done relevant to the field, whether it was volunteer, internship, or paid, but they didn't really care which it was.

If your graduate school asks for outside activities not related to the field (like the webmaster for the sports group, I assume?), I would go ahead and list them. I don't think it'll be very important for admissions, since graduate schools mostly want to see that you're passionate about the field / program, not that you're "well rounded." The well-rounded student is more sought after in undergrad.

Lost_Realist · #3 11-02-2009, 04:40 PM

The whole thing is that my undergrad was in the CS field, but graduate is going to be teaching. So I don't exactly have a lot of teaching experience (well, more like none). But it's on the application, so I might as well put something in there.

The form says:

"Please list any extracurricular, volunteer or community/public service or similar activities in which you have participated. (In this section, applicants to the early childhood education programs should indicate the experience they have had working with groups of children over time.)"

I did volunteer doing a site for a local fire department. I think I'll go with that. Sounds better than a sports club LOL

FishOutOfWater · #4 11-03-2009, 11:13 PM

In that case, I would list anything that's relevant to teaching (any work with kids). I might actually put that you were a webmaster for a sports team as well, since they all for everything you were a part of (I think that is impressive-sounding, and teachers do need multimedia skills!). I would list it at the bottom though, below any direct experience with kids.