Advice on Improving Extracurriculars

Started by PaperMonkey
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PaperMonkey

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Hello, I'm a 2011 University of California Graduate with a 3.6 cGPA/sGPA, and will be taking the MCAT in January. Aside from prepping for the MCAT, I'm working on improving my Extracurriculars. I was wondering if anyone had some advice on what to look into.

2.5 years of Clinical Research in a study on Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. To clarify, this was more than just being a "lab monkey" as some phrase it. I was involved in collecting and interpreting the data, interviewing research subjects, and so forth, along with training newer research students in the lab procedures.

2 Years Volunteer at a hospital, with lots of direct patient contact and interaction with hospital staff.

60 hours shadowing experience with a pediatrician, neurologist, and an internal medicine doctor.

Aside from that, I don't have much else. I tried joining a pre-med fraternity but didn't stick with it, I felt it wasn't particularly helpful and that it was taking too much time away from my classes.

I'm not sure if I have anything that could be counted as leadership experience, but I do have some things that might count? For example, I managed the day-to-day operations of the research project whenever the professor was absent for extended periods.

Any advice on improving EC's? Should I make an effort at publishing? Is there any more volunteer work I ought to do? Anything else that I should cover that my current EC's are missing?

I hope that my post wasn't too wordy 🙂. That said, if anyone needs more information, I'm more than happy to provide. Thank you for your help.
 
dunno maybe get a job. the depth looks good but there aren't many things you put. it's nice to learn people skills (aka dealing with *******s that think they're better than you). benchwork isn't for everyone and you have a lot of clinical research already, but that might be something to try out since you have the year. americorps is a cool program, if you apply now and get accepted, you can start in september and there are a ton of great places to do it at.
i didn't have any leadership on my app and it seems to be going okay so far
 
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It looks like you have research, clinical volunteering, and shadowing pretty well covered. I would consider adding some non-clinical volunteering if you have time. Teaching/tutoring are pretty common as are food bank/homeless shelter type activities, but it could be anything; I walked dogs at a local animal shelter, which was a lot of fun.

It sounds like your research position involved some leadership experience, especially if you were managing other people as part of your day-to-day lab operations in addition to training new students.
 
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PaperMonkey said:
Aside from Americorps, are there any examples of non-medical volunteering that you recommend?
Click to expand...

In addition to those that have been mentioned already:

Contacting the local Habitat for Humanity Chapter
Working for the Special Olympics
Parks sometimes need volunteers
Ditto to the above for cities: some area good at it some aren't
Libraries
United Way or Salvation Army

Any of these are great. Just pick one and spend a lot of time on it. In my opinion, better to do a ton of hours for one organization than spread it out.
 
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