<p>EC's are helpful for someone wanting to get into business after undergrad.</p>
<p>you should do an EC because it's something you like to do. I did habitat for humanity, and spent tons of hours on it. i went away for a week at a time during spring break, spent a lot of saturdays building homes, spent times during the week going to meetings and various other events on campus that we were hosting. i also was a member of the college democrats and we spent a lot of time on campus during the presidential race last year handing out information and having debates with the college republicans. i also was a member of the asian entertainment club at penn state where we watched various asian films on friday nights and would go out for hibachi and various festivals on weekends... all of these clubs were great ways to meet other people and make friends... plus a chance to actually do something... not to pad a resume.</p>
<p>if you can't make friends in your ECs then you're probably in the wrong ones... you have something in common with everybody there. A lot of clubs have a social aspect outside of their primary purpose as well, like they'll get people together to have parties or play frisbee or whatever.</p>
<p>What else are you going to do with your time? Play 6 hours of World of Warcraft a day?</p>
<p>I'm going to a college where I'm going to know one person. Now, she's my best friend, but we aren't going to live together and we want to make our own friends. If you go to a smaller private school, the atmosphere is more like high school--you make friends with people through classes. But my school has a population of over 30,000, so you have to put yourself out there in order to meet people. There is also a very active Greek life at MU which can be somewhat exclusive, so I'm not going to sit around waiting for the party invites, because few will come if I'm not pledging and I sit on my arse. </p>
<p>I'm going to work for the campus newpaper, which is supposedly a great, tight-knit group that has lots of awesome parties. I also am planning on joining one other community service club--I'll figure that out at orientation, when they have a big club fair. Besides that, I'm planning on having an on-campus job, hopefully in the bookstore. I also want to take some yoga and Pilates classes at the really awesome rec center.</p>
<p>Some of your ECs can help you depending on your future career goals, and sometimes internships are interested in seeing what you've been involved in at school. For instance, if you want to be a journalist, you'd better join the campus paper; if you want to go into business, recruiters have said that joining investment clubs or business associations help; if you want to do law, joining a pre-law society will give you networking opportunities; if you like politics, writing for the political review looks good. And if you're a leader in things, people will see that on your resume.</p>
<p>Some ECs are important. If you are going to study engineering, then joining your specific professional society would be important, since you'll do a lot of networking at conferences and interclubs. I can only assume the same thing applies to business majors. If you're in premed, you need to have some ECs, preferably with a leadership position by the time you graduate (president of the organization or higher).</p>
<p>I think the main difference between participating in ECs in high school and in college is that high school ECs are meant to show how "well-rounded" you are, whereas college ECs are meant to show that you have interest and experience in whatever you wish to pursue as a career.</p>
<p>yeah, I definitely second feenotype's second paragraph.</p>
<p>And it's sad that ECs in high school really can't do that. Funding, I suppose.</p>
<p>Well choose ECs you enjoy, not some academic club. If you like ultimate frisbee, join the ultimate frisbee club. If you like surfing, join the surf intramural sport team/club.</p>
<p>Um, you do ECs because the colleges don't want a class full of nerdy academic automatons. In a word, that would be boring. Not to mention the class would be utterly socially inept, and thus unlikely to return the college's investment down the road. It is the people who take their ECs to heart that are the movers and shakers in the world, not the nerds. Socially apt people tend to be wealthier in general, though there are exceptions (namely Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking)</p>
<p>They want real people, who've done real things.</p>
<p>This thread is about ECs...real ECs. Intramurals sports are just that, sports. Intramurals and other clubs are your personal social life, not your resume.</p>
<p>Employers and grad schools don't give a hoot if you played intramural ulimate frisbee or cleaned up streams in college. They want to guage your competency in performing the task that you will be paid to do, not whether you can juggle flaming sticks (unless, of course, you are applying for a job as a clown) or had the highest (or lowest, whichever is the better one) handicap in your fraternity IM golf team.</p>
<p>If anyone is asking the question "why do ECs?" at this point in his/her life, it is too late for them.</p>
<p>I truly pity you if you did ECs just to get into college/pad a resume.</p>
<p>ECs in college gives me a chances to manage and lead other people.</p>
<p>Why do ECs? Oh, I don't know, maybe because I find them fun?</p>
<p>Not everything you do has to tie into advancing yourself in terms of college/grad-school admissions.</p>
<p>And in college, that's a great way to make friends since there are too many people and you don't see them often enough in class to become friends.</p>
<p>"This thread is about ECs...real ECs. Intramurals sports are just that, sports. Intramurals and other clubs are your personal social life, not your resume.</p>
<p>Employers and grad schools don't give a hoot if you played intramural ulimate frisbee or cleaned up streams in college. They want to guage your competency in performing the task that you will be paid to do, not whether you can juggle flaming sticks (unless, of course, you are applying for a job as a clown) or had the highest (or lowest, whichever is the better one) handicap in your fraternity IM golf team."</p>
<p>Not True-- I am the assistant captain of my club sport--I do lots of organizational things, like running and preparing for meetings, I am also a treasurer for another club where I prepare year long budgets and other financial stuff--for people who havn't had actual jobs yet activities like these show that you can function performing leadership positions, and know how to think on top of academic work. </p>
<p>If clubs and sports aren't EC's what exactly do you define as one?</p>
<p>I'll give you that having a leadership position in a club, whether an anime club or an honor society, is something impressive that shows experience and dedication, but I would probably restrict ECs to professional societies and honoraries and whatnot.</p>
<p>To me, EC's are just resume/admission padding. I literally did NOTHING in hs (ok, I did some volunteering here and there and wrote some math contests, but thats about it) and had a blast. I totally respect people who do EC's if it's something they enjoy, but for people who just don't care (like me!), why bother?</p>
<p>"If anyone is asking the question "why do ECs?" at this point in his/her life, it is too late for them."</p>
<p>"Not everything you do has to tie into advancing yourself in terms of college/grad-school admissions."</p>
<p>Exactly. But look how around at how many people join your clubs or activities just to slap it on their transcript.</p>
<p>People are too crazy about this whole "must go to college" thing.</p>