<p>I'm a freshman undergraduate student, and I am already in one that's directly related to my career, one that is kind of related, and one that is unrelated and just for fun (a music group). I also plan to get research opportunities as fast as possible and get internships or more research opportunities over the summer. Is this okay? Do bosses of companies care whether I do extracurricular activities besides research? Do they want to still see "leadership" like colleges do in high school students? Is my GPA pretty much the only thing that matters now, or other things as well?</p>
<p>80> views and no replies?</p>
<p>Wow, stop worrying about how everything you do looks to employers. You’re not trying to get into college anymore - you’re trying to find yourself and really come into your own. Do what interests you. Explore new things. As a freshman, don’t do anything you hate or don’t really like just because you think it will look good. Do things that are actually interesting to you, for the sake of doing them. It’s not all about the resume. You don’t even have to worry all that much about research or internships as a freshman. I promise you’ll do alright.</p>
<p>Thanks RoxSox, but still trying to get an idea so that I can do helpful things and not overburden myself at the same time.</p>
<p>And upping this for input from more people.</p>
<p>As someone that was back on campus recruiting for a job recently here’s my take. Remember though that I was recruiting for an extremely selective management type job, so it may not apply to everybody.</p>
<p>The most important thing is work experience (co-op, internship, etc.) Companies want to know that you’re capable of showing up and doing good work. The second most important thing was leadership experience, whether it was on a part time job (shift manager, etc.) or being the president of some sort of club. That being said, if you’re the ‘leader’ of some BS club then we’ll figure you out in the interview and it won’t help at all. After that we looked at other activities to see if you were a well rounded person.</p>
<p>We never even considered GPA.</p>
<p>When I was a freshman, I was pretty concerned about “doing the right thing”, and not missing anything. That’s what got you into college - you probably started studying for your SATs early, you knew about ECs, that kind of stuff. </p>
<p>College is a different game. Completely different game.</p>
<p>In HS, all of us were pretty much the same. In college, you try to specialise and find your own way. There’s no right (high SATs, good ECs,…), but many “rights”. And freshman year is the time to find that way. I know you don’t want to hear this. Because it’s easier to cling to some general instructions like “This will look good.” </p>
<p>Instead of this, I’ll tell you what I did:
- I exposed myself to many seminars (usually given by our faculties, 1-3 day workshops…). Listened to talks. Joined ToastMasters (presentation skills are always good). Joined an engineering club. No clear goals, just variety and fun.
- In one of those seminar I found a profession that really interested me. I had never heard of this kind of work before, and tried it, and decided I wanted to do it. And that was worth more than any lecture I’ve ever heard in college.
- With that in mind, my path is pretty clear. Looking at the cv’s of successful people in my field, actually talking to those people,… gave me a sense of what to do. </p>
<p>This has nothing to do with ECs that demonstrate leadership. I’m attractive to companies in my area if I have experience with X (so I found a lab course at a cc, and got some internship), am good with international teamwork (so I travelled a lot, did an internship in Ireland, worked on a research team out of state), have research experience (so I published). </p>
<p>I will go to grad school, with clear goals and already some sort of a network. I have work experience (actually, I’m already doing my future job), I have the skills I need. My cv isn’t a collection of random things, it is all very focused. My classes target to that profession. My jobs do so. My ECs do so. </p>
<p>And believe me, that wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t found something I care about in a random workshop I only entered because I had nothing better to do. Fact is, that you can’t optimize for something general. For me, there’s no sense in demonstrating leadership. For someone who wants a position like chuy described, there is.</p>