What counts as an extracurricular activity?

[lolasmommy]

Im sorry this may seem like a question with the most obvious answers to them but my husband and I got into a little debate about what counts as an extracurricular activity... I thought it was simply the things you do outside of school and work. Do extracurricular act. include only community or school organizations and clubs or sports teams? I ask only because I am not a part of any of the above but I am involved in helping everyone with their extracurricular activities...(ie. active at my child's school, turned a hobby into a business, supportive member of my husbands club). I am not for resume padding but if the above means I dont have any activities I will find some more. please list some extracurricular activities.... thanks

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[Piyush]

Driving seniors to groceries on weekends
part of a youth volunteer group, and recently a leader in that group
volunteer at the hospital ER, very simple EC actually
Play soccer on the weekends, sometimes dodge ball
hiking in the winter - very few dare to challenge the nature in the cold

It could be some one timer activities too if they show a perticular character.
For example, I helped the family next door move in, just 'cause I had some time on my hand, and I waked the dog two or three houses down when the family went on vacation, and I used to run a organic chem tutorial just voluntarily when I was at univ.

Also, if you do work that is not your JOB then its good, like I TAed for statistics course, work with the medical unit of the military once or twice a week, etc.


HOpe that was helpful


Cheers
Piyush

 

[lolasmommy]

Ohhh I see, I have no problem then... I go on hikes, reef walks, snorkel, bowling, plant collecting and pressing, boating... yes we so a lot of this on the weekends because its all free (except bowling) and my kid can get involved. I also was the TA for a bio course and an agriculture course. I tutored the freshman biostudents all semester. I figured it had to be an activity that involved a superior to be able to document the devoted hours. Other than that I live for 'extra curricular activities'! I do lots of crafting projects... that counts right? Its my hobby actually its a stress reliever. Thanks

 

[Piyush]

Well, for each of the activities that I had listed, I had someone who could vouch for me. So, really its better to have a alibi so to say.

Be sure to distinguish between hobbies and ECs. Hobbies can be EC for sure, like I like to play soccer, and I play soccer. But dont rely on all hobbies to fill up your app. You probably also want to see if you can get some clinical experience.

If you toil around SDN for a while, you will see a need for some clinical stuff like hospital volunteering, some physician shadowing, some leadership activity, some sporting activity, some teaching, some research, etc. The idea is to get a general experience.

That is to say that you dont need to invent the greatest medical innovation of all times, but while you are doing research, be it in medicine or history or whatever, you should still encounter the scientific method.

One of the best ways to get an idea is to look up MDApps for people here. To do that, just look under their screen name for their MDApps link, or in their post's signature.

Cheers
Piyush.

 

[lolasmommy]

Thanks...its been really helpful.

Well, for each of the activities that I had listed, I had someone who could vouch for me. So, really its better to have a alibi so to say.

Be sure to distinguish between hobbies and ECs. Hobbies can be EC for sure, like I like to play soccer, and I play soccer. But dont rely on all hobbies to fill up your app. You probably also want to see if you can get some clinical experience.

If you toil around SDN for a while, you will see a need for some clinical stuff like hospital volunteering, some physician shadowing, some leadership activity, some sporting activity, some teaching, some research, etc. The idea is to get a general experience.

That is to say that you dont need to invent the greatest medical innovation of all times, but while you are doing research, be it in medicine or history or whatever, you should still encounter the scientific method.

One of the best ways to get an idea is to look up MDApps for people here. To do that, just look under their screen name for their MDApps link, or in their post's signature.

Cheers
Piyush.

 

[Bacchus]

Ohhh I see, I have no problem then... I go on hikes, reef walks, snorkel, bowling, plant collecting and pressing, boating... yes we so a lot of this on the weekends because its all free (except bowling) and my kid can get involved. I also was the TA for a bio course and an agriculture course. I tutored the freshman biostudents all semester. I figured it had to be an activity that involved a superior to be able to document the devoted hours. Other than that I live for 'extra curricular activities'! I do lots of crafting projects... that counts right? Its my hobby actually its a stress reliever. Thanks

Have you ever snorkeled the Great Barrier? BEAUTIFUL.

I would say helping out the hubby and kid are ECs because they are activities you are involved in that don't fall under vocation or education.

 

[LizzyM]

The categories that AMCAS provides for Experiences give you some idea. They include:
Employment, military
Employment, non-military
Honors
Publications
Presentations (e.g. at regional or national meetings)
Conference attended
Research (there might be subcategories-- I don't remember)
Tutoring
Volunteer, clinical
Volunteer, non-clinical
Athletics
Hobbies and Advocations

Those are the ones that I remember. You should have some clinical exposure whether through employment or volunteer activity. Helping at your child's school would be "volunteer, non-clinical", turning a hobby into a business would be "employment, non-military". Helping with your husband's club might be "volunteer, non-clinical" or you could skip it. You can put a lot of things that you do for fun under hobbies or athletics and specify that you find it to be a stress reliever (adcoms do like to see that you have something constructive and healthy as a stress reliever.)

 

[Geekchick921]

Have you ever snorkeled the Great Barrier? BEAUTIFUL.

I would say helping out the hubby and kid are ECs because they are activities you are involved in that don't fall under vocation or education.

Ooh, I did when I was 13. I went with the People to People Student Ambassador program. Most amazing trip ever. I have some amazing photos from that snorkeling day, too.

 

[Bacchus]

Ooh, I did when I was 13. I went with the People to People Student Ambassador program. Most amazing trip ever. I have some amazing photos from that snorkeling day, too.

I People to People'd it up in the summer of '02. I was a high school student though so we had some more autonomy. Like walking around Auckland, NZ at 1 a.m. looking for ice cream (We ended up at McDonalds ).

 

[DoctorPardi]

Almost anything you do non-related to a specific class could be an EC, but you want to present the strongest examples as possible and leave out the less important ones.

If you bowl once or twice a month non-competitively that is probably not EC worthy in and of itself. However if you were to bowl weekly in a league then that might be different. Also you might under hobbies include the many different sports you are involved in rather than having a separate EC for each sport.

Things like research, clinical experience and leadership may be of the highest importance, but as LizzyM suggests adcoms are interested to see you have a stress reliever somewhere in your life.

 

[McLovinMD]

If you are close enough to smell the activity, it is extracurricular

 

[Geekchick921]

I People to People'd it up in the summer of '02. I was a high school student though so we had some more autonomy. Like walking around Auckland, NZ at 1 a.m. looking for ice cream (We ended up at McDonalds ).

My sister went to Australia and NZ with P2P! I forget what year...

That's better than when I went with about 30 girls and a handful of professors from my high school to London, Paris, and Madrid. We wound up stranded in the middle of Paris at 1am with no way to get back to our hotel. It was a nightmare, but I can't explain what made it so bad without a really long story that'll put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Suffice to say, most of us wound up in tears by the time we finally got back to the hotel for various reasons, and I will never go to that miserable place ever again.

 

[RugbyJC]

Although all are extracirricular,

Driving seniors to groceries on weekends
part of a youth volunteer group, and recently a leader in that group
volunteer at the hospital ER,

I probably would considering that, more specifically, as volunteer work, and...

Play soccer on the weekends, sometimes dodge ball
hiking in the winter - very few dare to challenge the nature in the cold

I would consider these hobbies. I did include sports in the extracirricular section, but mostly because I either coached, refereed, and/or played for my college or participated in sanctioned competitions. This is just my opinion.

Any clubs that you participate in are ECs, any volunteer work, employment there is a category for, and, most importantly clinical experience as ECs...and research. Just use your judgement. Putting down every single Race For the Cure you attended in your lifetime might be pushing it, but if you do charity events often there's nothing wrong with including them somewhere...or even events that aren't official that consume time and help others (like the above poster).

 

[metalgearHMN]

My sister went to Australia and NZ with P2P! I forget what year...

That's better than when I went with about 30 girls and a handful of professors from my high school to London, Paris, and Madrid. We wound up stranded in the middle of Paris at 1am with no way to get back to our hotel. It was a nightmare, but I can't explain what made it so bad without a really long story that'll put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Suffice to say, most of us wound up in tears by the time we finally got back to the hotel for various reasons, and I will never go to that miserable place ever again.

Wow, don't be a tease. Now you HAVE to tell us what happened.

 

[Parthenon89]

SDN should be counted as an extracurricular activity, if so, i've got over a thousand hours volunteering

 

[LizzyM]

One need not be involved in sanctioned or official athletic events to list something as athletic (or as a hobby or advocation). I've seen a few who have listed activities such as hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail (2,175 miles!) with just one other person.

 

[Geekchick921]

Wow, don't be a tease. Now you HAVE to tell us what happened.

Since it's nearly bedtime, and I wound up in a sour mood for most of the day anyway, I'll tell you.

We were all going to see the Eiffel Tower. We had to take public transit since the craptacular touring company we went through didn't give us our bus for excursions they themselves didn't offer. We went at night, and after walking quite a bit from the subway station (and many ass-slaps from the street vendors hawking "souvenirs" that had nothing to do with France), we got there at 11:03. They stop taking people to the top at 11, and we couldn't only go halfway up. Since it was only halfway (STUPID mistake), a bunch of us, myself included, took the stairs and others took the elevator. By the time we were ready to go, it was about 12:30. We decided to take another subway route back to the hotel, one that actually involved a transfer between lines, because it was supposedly faster.

We went to switch subway lines, and a security guard comes down the stairs and tells all of us we can't be there (about 30 high schools girls and a handful of teachers), because the trains stop running at 1AM. None of us had any idea that was going to happen, but now we were stranded in the middle of Paris with no way to get back to our hotel at a little past 1 in the morning.

We got up to the street, and I could actually see a landmark that we could see from our hotel, because it was directly down the street from it. I suggested we just walk... but I was ignored. Well, we tried to get a bunch of taxis, but no luck. The cops just stared at us blankly, even though we had at least one teacher that was completely fluent in French. Eventually, we were advised to walk to this bus depot and we could catch a bus back to the hotel. So we start hoofing it.

It was WAY longer than I think we were told. At least 2 miles, probably more. We were supposed to be at the Louvre at 9AM that morning, and we walked past it at around 2:30AM. No one thought it was funny when I suggested we just crash on the sidewalk, but I was so beat I would have been up for it. When we got to the "bus depot" it was just a line of buses parked along the street. Also, they block was filthy with these incredibly sleazy-looking Frenchmen taking drags off their cigarettes and looking at us as if they were trying to decide which of us would get robbed, raped, or murdered, and in what order.

Well... we finally find the bus that should take us back to our hotel, and we get on. So do about 200 other people. I have no idea how that bus even moved; whenever the doors opened people were falling out, and more people were still trying to get in. The girls sitting in the back were getting groped, or were having men make out vigorously in front of them just to get a reaction. Personally, I thought I was in a pretty good spot standing with two girls I had a lot of classes together near the middle of the bus. Though, there was one guy leering at us with a fanny pack on, but with the pack in the front, and it was so crowded we couldn't see what was going on. He got off the bus, I looked down, and there was an ejaculation's worth of fresh semen splattered on the ground right near where he was standing.

He beat off on the bus while he was staring at us. I saw it, and the girls I was standing with followed my eyes and saw it. We were all so upset we started crying. Then one of our teacher/chaperones looked over and saw it, made a "Good God" face and tried to calm us down. Then some poor unsuspecting French woman got on the bus and set her shopping bag right down on it and started tracking it all over the place with her feet. Ew.

We got back to the hotel sometime between 3 and 4 AM. Most of us were in tears, and there was a massive line at the payphone to call parents/friends/boyfriends and tell them what happened. I wound up on the phone with my fiance (then just my boyfriend of about 6 months) crying to him for a good half hour. Most of us opted out of the Louvre trip the next day.

I'd also like to mention that we went to London, Paris, and Madrid, and Paris was the only place where we had pickpocketing attempts. As you can imagine, nearly every native we met was horrendously rude and condescending (Madrid was lovely, though... I'd love to go back there). And, to top it all off, we were there during 3 of the hottest days of July, and the stereotype about French BO is true. It made my eyes water at times.

I will never go back to that God-forsaken cesspool as long as I live.

 

[Bacchus]

One need not be involved in sanctioned or official athletic events to list something as athletic (or as a hobby or advocation). I've seen a few who have listed activities such as hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail (2,175 miles!) with just one other person.

The trail is basically in my backyard. I hiked 5 miles of it and it was tough, let alone 2175.

 

[HumidBeing]

Ah, you girls were evidently left with your own views of French "culture".

 

[lolasmommy]

Have you ever snorkeled the Great Barrier? BEAUTIFUL.

I would say helping out the hubby and kid are ECs because they are activities you are involved in that don't fall under vocation or education.

Ohhh not not the Great Barrier Reef...Im from Guam (an island in the Pacific...the only unincorporated territory of the US) and we are very lucky to have beautiful reefs surrounding the island. I drive 15mins in any direction and I hit a cool beach. Snorkeling has been a hobby of mine for a while. It gets pretty intense when youre surrounded by fish expecting to be fed when you have nothing on hand! (*youre not supposed to feed the fish anyway...they get dependent on handouts and it puts them in a tough spot)