<p>How important are extracurricular activities when it comes to looking for jobs/internships?</p>
<p>Work experience and academics are much more important. This isn’t like applying to undergrad.</p>
<p>I’ve never had an employer give one iota about extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>I’d say do the ones that you want to (and I’d encourage you to do some because it’s part of the college experience) but not to do things for the purpose of looking good to an employer.</p>
<p>What about grad school? I mean, is there a difference between not doing any EC’s, maybe doing one that you’re into, or doing 4 different clubs/activities on the belief that it would help from admission?</p>
<p>What if applying out of undergrad into some leadership development program, do they actually expect to involvement in clubs?</p>
<p>For work, work experience will trump EC’s.
For graduate school, research experience will trump EC’s.
You would need some strong EC’s for them to make any substantive difference to your portfolio of accomplishments.
Cocurricular activities… might be better in this respect. Like special projects or honors courses or something.</p>
<p>EC’s may help with internship interviews. In an interview, you might be asked a question like “tell me about a time where you had to lead a team”. If you only take classes and spend time with friends, you might not really have a good example. If you’re in a leadership position in an EC, you should have some good examples.</p>
<p>Also, employers like to see people in elected positions in EC’s. It shows that people like you and trust you (people don’t vote for someone they dislike/distrust).</p>
<p>The mentors who have worked with S’s FIRST robotics team have gone on to very good schools (inc. MIT) with great financial packages, in part due to the extensive volunteer work with the team. It is community service in ‘engineering inspiration’ of hs students. Schools love it. The speciality has ranges from electrical, mechanical, computer, and aerospace. We are sad to see them move on, but thrilled for the opportunities presented to them.
So yes, I think they are. It shows your commitment to your community, your dedication to engineering and the desire to share that with young students.</p>
<p>If you’re going to join some random club just to join so you can put it on your resume, don’t bother. It’s a complete waste of time (if you even go to meetings/activities).</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you join some kind of club and do something cool then it could be worth it. If you work on a team and build some kind of robot (for example) that is something you could bring up during an interview.</p>
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<p>these (and mba programs) tend to like “joiners” so absolutely. not really expect, but being in leadership positions is a big plus, especially student govt. and college athletics. they will almost surely hire student body president with 3.6 gpa over 3.85 w/ no activities except world of warcraft.</p>
<p>if you are looking for a normal engineer job, doesn’t matter at all.</p>
<p>As far as graduate school, it depends if you are applying to a funded program or a professional/continuing education/distance program. Funded program may care a “little” about your EC’s. Professional/Distance programs could care less.</p>