<p>Hi, I'm wondering which ECs I should do to prepare for grad school. A lot of you urge people to join the clubs that are fun, and I agree. The thing is, ECs in college is much more serious. A perfectly sane individual can't possible commit to more than 4 ECs throughout his/her college years. I don't know which one I should do. I'm already doing ultimate. As for research, I'm planning to get a job in a research lab. I'm looking for suggestions.</p>
<p>Don't just say "we can't tell you anything, It is YOu who have to find out for yourself, young grasshopper." ... What do you think is the point of this thread?</p>
<p>I'm a double major in Math and Chem E. Please suggest a range of ECs that might interest me as well as help me get into grad school</p>
<p>See if there is a ChemE professional society on your campus. MEPS is the one for Materials Science, there’s probably something for you all too. You’ll get to know your classmates better and a lot of the time the societies will go on trips to conferences or plant tours. For example, MEPS at VT takes about a dozen students down to Cocoa Beach every January for about a week for a conference, and our transportation, hotels, and some of our food is paid for. In addition we actually get paid for the 5 or so hours a day we spend at the conference (working security usually) and have the rest of the time to do whatever we want. Your society may not do something that cool but they probably have some opportunities.</p>
<p>What I’m doing is joining 2 major-related clubs (Biology Club and a Math Club), 1 leadership club (Student Ambassadors), and 1 for my pleasure relating to my preferences. I can’t say that’s the end all, be-all, most brilliant plan known to mankind, but I can handle the workload, I’m meeting people that I’ll be glad to know in the future, and having fun at the same time. Therefore, I’d go for something related to ChemE like chuy mentioned, either another related to your major or else an internship related to it, and then one or two clubs that you enjoy being in and could get some helpful experience from. (Like computers? That’s a great skill to have. Art sometimes helps engineers. No idea what you want to do, but consider that.)</p>
<p>I heard that getting into grad school is usually just based on GPA. I think meaningful ECs would be doing research (which you already have) and internships. An engineering society (as mentioned above) seems like a good idea since they can help you attend conferences and network and such, maybe you should also try to aim for a leadership position in that and such. And then another thing I think you should go for is something that you personally enjoy that doesn’t deal with ChemE (unless that is your life) – it adds another dimension and such.</p>
<p>When are you going to start actually living life? Like, actually enjoying life, right now? Is everything you do for the future, to please the whims of some unknown stranger?</p>
<p>The truth is no one cares what extra curriculars you do, really. It’s something you do for your own fun and to meet people. I am heavily involved on campus - very heavily involved in many organizations. I can tell you right now that most employers are never going to know what I’ve done, what I’ve created, or frankly care much. This may apply to a lot of other things in life as well. Does this bother me? Not at all… I’ve just living my life and having fun doing it.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn’t join any academic or major-related club. It wouldn’t suit my interests. On the other hand, many people find enjoyment and meet great people through those clubs as well.</p>
<p>If you want to try something new, take a risk, meet people, have fun — then do it. But I wouldn’t do it to ‘look good’ on some application. Start living your life for yourself man. Figure out what you want to do and do it.</p>
<p>ughh reading CC always makes me stressed out =/ i didn’t even know grad schools cared about ec’s, i thought that was a HS thing? damn, I feel stupid now. I’m in a community service club, and another club where we try foreign desserts…I joined some other club where we went camping. haha I mean i get good grades and did this fun research internship in my one summer, but I didn’t know Grad schools would care about this stuff. </p>
<p>Is Yagamon right, do Grad schools look down on “fun clubs” as oppposed to academic stuff? should EC’s be related to your major? i realllly wouldn’t want to dump camping for chem club :[</p>
<p>but what do these academic clubs even do? I guess they might give you networking opportunities…but if you’re an Engineering major, why join an engineering club, surely you get enough of engineering in class? Do grad schools really give a crap? What about leadership positions, is it important like when we applied to college?</p>
<p>As a professor I want to offer this: NO ONE WILL CARE WHAT YOUR ECS ARE! There is unlikely even a place to mention on your apps. </p>
<p>Get a great GPA, great test scores, great research experience (ideally publications) and letters from faculty you work with. That’s it my friend.</p>
<p>At least for grad school goals. Now just go do something purely fun for ECs if you have time.</p>
<p>*As a professor I want to offer this: NO ONE WILL CARE WHAT YOUR ECS ARE! There is unlikely even a place to mention on your apps. </p>
<p>Get a great GPA, great test scores, great research experience (ideally publications) and letters from faculty you work with. That’s it my friend.</p>
<p>At least for grad school goals. Now just go do something purely fun for ECs if you have time. *</p>
<p>Just have fun. As long as you’re not having TOO much fun (i.e. being irresponsible while having fun), your grades will probably improve as morale improve - and grad schools DO care about grades.</p>
<p>Maxellis:
I play for Iowa State. I’m only a 1st year, so I don’t know what all tournaments there are. But we’re in the same region as Carlton, and by the looks of it we have enough talent to make nationals this year. What’s going to kill us is our veterans’ discipline. God they’re all drunkards.</p>
<p>Nice. We played you guys last year at MLC where there was a total of 3 breaks all game due to wind (it was crazy (the tournament, not the game specifically)). Nationals is a bit of a jump; you have to get passed at least 3 of the Carlton, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Luther, and Iowa teams to get through. I don’t know the specifics of each team, but Carlton is gonna still be good, Wisconsin is graduating a lot of O line players, Minnesota is almost always 3-5 at regionals every year, Luther has a crazy good sophomore, and Iowa is still gonna be a little better than last year. I have a lot of friends in the central region if you can’t tell. </p>
<p>Ultimate players aren’t drunkards, but it is going to take a paragraph to explain the background. </p>
<p>First, ultimate players like to party with other ultimate players. Legit ultimate players (i.e. those that play with cleats, using a discraft disc, practicing, and working out) are very competitive. When you get competitive people together at a party, they are going to get competitive about the party. So, at ultimate parties there are always various things a team can do to help them “win” the party. Side note: winning the party at some tournaments is given equal importance as winning the tournament itself. The most common ones are team drinking games (where your team plays another team in pong, quarters, flip cup, boat racing, etc.). This is why ultimate players are known for drinking. </p>
<p>There are other ways to win a party that don’t directly involve drinking (although it usually helps in the decision making process to win the party). Examples are landsharks (only ultimate players know about this and it would not be appropriate to discuss on this forum, but if you want to know what it is pm me), which team has the last full line of players at the party, which team has the last player at the party, which team can do the most rediculous stunt at the party, etc. </p>
<p>That is my rant on ultimate, it is late and I am losing my train of thought.</p>
<p>Pssht. Even if I could get in/wanted to go, my parents wouldn’t let me go to Northwestern. Northwestern has $700 million dollars in lakefront property in Evanston and doesn’t pay a single dollar to the city in taxes. Our town is dirt poor because of Northwestern. </p>
<p>I was born and raised in E-town, and I go to Indiana.</p>
<p>One of my engineering classes had a seminar today about job recruiting after graduation, although he never talked about grad school.</p>
<p>What he said was that we need GPA, internships/jobs, and active engagement with the community. By active engagement, he meant something on the resume that would add leadership qualities and communication skills to your package. But on this forum, almost everybody seems to believe that we should only focus on research and academics, the rest is completely useless other than for enjoyment.</p>
<p>Applying to grad school and jobs are completely different.</p>
<p>Grad school’s want people who are experts in the field they want to study, therefore being in a bazillion clubs that have nothing to do with your masters/phd field could be seen as a negative or as if you are not devoted enough especially if you have little to no research. Like if you were a science major, research and publishing would be way more important than spending those hours volunteering for habitat for humanity because that doesn’t teach you anything about your specific field at all. Also the fact that you published a paper or got job-ish experience in labs would be worth more than a club thing to employers anyway.</p>
<p>You have to find a balance. I personally do not have time to go to club meetings every week and volunteer AND research AND keep up with classes AND work. So I choose to be in one club that I really like (comic book club) and the rest of the time is for research, school and working/internships.</p>