D
deleted1027144
I have been watching the Med School Headquarters videos about application review, and I have seen how other students are counting volunteer hours. Some of them seemed like a stretch to me, but what do I know? I want to be creative with my hours, but I also want to be honest and not appear disingenuous.
1. For my MPH program, we were required to complete a practicum before graduation. I ended up “working” as an infection preventionist at a hospital for about 320 hours. I did interact with patients regularly and I was getting real work done for the hospital. These hours were all unpaid, so technically I was volunteering my time, but the practicum experience itself was required. Does this count as clinical volunteering even if the primary motivation was to complete a requirement for my MPH program?
2. When I was a second-year grad student, I volunteered to TA for some of the first-year classes. TAs were never paid for their time at my graduate school. I thought about classifying this time as Teaching/Tutoring, but I do have another, more significant teaching experience in my application. Would it be appropriate to call the TA hours non-clinical volunteering, or is that a stretch? My volunteering hours are admittedly a bit thin because I have been a single mom for 4 years.
Also during my employment, I went through two Joint Commission accreditation surveys. Anyone who has worked in a hospital knows that these are a huge deal, and the admin spends months preparing for them and also months implementing changes afterwards. I really want to include these surveys in the Work/Activities section because they were tremendous learning experiences. But my questions are 1) is that legit? And 2) which category would that fall under? Paid employment? Other?
1. For my MPH program, we were required to complete a practicum before graduation. I ended up “working” as an infection preventionist at a hospital for about 320 hours. I did interact with patients regularly and I was getting real work done for the hospital. These hours were all unpaid, so technically I was volunteering my time, but the practicum experience itself was required. Does this count as clinical volunteering even if the primary motivation was to complete a requirement for my MPH program?
2. When I was a second-year grad student, I volunteered to TA for some of the first-year classes. TAs were never paid for their time at my graduate school. I thought about classifying this time as Teaching/Tutoring, but I do have another, more significant teaching experience in my application. Would it be appropriate to call the TA hours non-clinical volunteering, or is that a stretch? My volunteering hours are admittedly a bit thin because I have been a single mom for 4 years.
Also during my employment, I went through two Joint Commission accreditation surveys. Anyone who has worked in a hospital knows that these are a huge deal, and the admin spends months preparing for them and also months implementing changes afterwards. I really want to include these surveys in the Work/Activities section because they were tremendous learning experiences. But my questions are 1) is that legit? And 2) which category would that fall under? Paid employment? Other?
