Leadership

[GuitarFreak]

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Hey guys
I have a few questions about leadership experience. I have a few EC's that I was confused about whether they counted as leadership or not. I was a Community Assistant (like a resident assistant but you need to create a 'community' while being an RA) and I'm going to be a mentor next year. Would either of these count as leadership?

Also, I owned a recording studio at one point and am a music producer as well. I mentioned that in my "Musician" activity. Does owning a studio & producing a number of bands (in a diff. country) count as leadership? Since I didnt put that under leadership, should they still be able to read it & interpret it as such?

Thanks in advance 🙂!

 

[DendWrite]

For leadership, what matters is that you had people "under" you for whom you made decisions / hired, etc. Mentoring is different from leadership in most cases. The Community Assistant position may or may not be leadership — it is hard to tell from your description. Finally, owning your own recording studio is most likely leadership if you hired others to work for you. Regardless, though, definitely include it on your application...that's something really interesting that will make you stand out and appear more well-rounded.

Finally, as LizzyM mentioned in another thread, leadership is not absolutely necessary: it would be worse to misrepresent something as leadership that is not (and then get grilled during an interview) than it would be to simply be lacking it entirely.

 

[scotsdoc54]

I definitely think the Community Assistant position could be leadership. I was an RA for three years during undergrad, and in my description, I definitely portrayed it as a leadership position (as I certainly think it was!). That being said, I listed my RA job as a paid position - non-medical. If you were paid for your work, I might consider listing it that way and describe it as a leadership position. I think adcoms would certainly pick up on that.

Same thing on the music studio. In the description, imply that it is a position of leadership.

 

[GuitarFreak]

Thanks guys. I was very confused about that but thanks for clearing it up. I had the CA thing under Leadership but I'll switch that to Paid non medical and describe it as leadership.

On a completely separate note though, right now, I have one activity that I have called "Active Musician and Sound Engineer". I've sort of bunched everything up in that. Do you think I should separate the two? Since playing and performing music is a completely different activity than owning a studio and recording it. That way, I could describe my studio thing as leadership more easily. The reason I did not wanna do that was because I didnt want it to look like I was just trying to fill up the activities spaces. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should. What do you guys think?

 

[Mattabet]

Go for it. You know your activities best. I set up PA's and sound systems for awhile and I have barely a lick of musical talent, so they strike me as discrete activities 🙂

And as far as leadership goes, I think it's better to look at it as more of a continuum, not all or nothing. It'd probably be better if they left it to the descriptions rather than a drop down menu to determine leadership, but what can you do?

 

[scotsdoc54]

Thanks guys. I was very confused about that but thanks for clearing it up. I had the CA thing under Leadership but I'll switch that to Paid non medical and describe it as leadership.

On a completely separate note though, right now, I have one activity that I have called "Active Musician and Sound Engineer". I've sort of bunched everything up in that. Do you think I should separate the two? Since playing and performing music is a completely different activity than owning a studio and recording it. That way, I could describe my studio thing as leadership more easily. The reason I did not wanna do that was because I didnt want it to look like I was just trying to fill up the activities spaces. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should. What do you guys think?

No problem. I'm sure you could list the CA job as a leadership experience, but for me I thought it fit better under paid - non-medical. To me, leadership as a drop down category seems to imply something different than a paid job like an RA position (though I would argue its certainly leadership).

As far as splitting the two, I would personally. I also wouldn't be afraid of filling up too many spots. I think those two are sufficiently different that you could easily consider them different experiences/activities. As far as using up a lot of spots, if there are 15 spots, why would they want you not to use them? There are certainly clear cut cases of stretching out things, but if you have a bunch, list them. I have 15 spots, and I feel like each of them was unique and important, even though one just listed hobbies and one just listed awards (which I was fortunate enough to have several).

Do be brief (resume style) in the descriptions though!

 

[GuitarFreak]

No problem. I'm sure you could list the CA job as a leadership experience, but for me I thought it fit better under paid - non-medical. To me, leadership as a drop down category seems to imply something different than a paid job like an RA position (though I would argue its certainly leadership).

As far as splitting the two, I would personally. I also wouldn't be afraid of filling up too many spots. I think those two are sufficiently different that you could easily consider them different experiences/activities. As far as using up a lot of spots, if there are 15 spots, why would they want you not to use them? There are certainly clear cut cases of stretching out things, but if you have a bunch, list them. I have 15 spots, and I feel like each of them was unique and important, even though one just listed hobbies and one just listed awards (which I was fortunate enough to have several).

Do be brief (resume style) in the descriptions though!

Gotcha! I'm definitely gonna split them up. I was feeling that squeezing everything in the restricted space for descriptions, I was leaving out a bunch of things I'd like to tell them. You said to write small resume style descriptions, that would make things a lot easier but why do I keep hearing that you should make the descriptions "interesting" and not just descriptive (as in resume)? Personally, I'd love to just write resume style but do the adcoms 'prefer' something else etc?


Mattabet: Yea I'd assume that by now they can spot leadership in a description even if its not listen in the drop down menu 🙂. Thanks for the help!