Work Experience Questions

[Swedishcoffee]

I've begun a few applications for the fall 2014 term, and I have a curiosity about work experience to which a few people on this forum may know the answer.

 

When schools say, for instance, "The average student at our school has four years of work experience," do they mean four years of strictly postgrad work experience, or do they regard the summer and semester internships during undergrad as work experience? Judging by the experience of others I've known getting into such programs, it seems to be the latter, but my sample size is not large enough that I can say for sure.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

[lilgreycells]

Most of my experience comes from Ed Policy/Public Policy programs. For them, I think in general work experience means actual postgraduate work experience not semester internships. Maybe those other people who only have summer/semester internships say that they have work experience but if you asked their departments they would say not really? Like there's just a miscommunication between the department and the students about what they're calling work experience?

[HerrDBoo]

I'm curious about this too. I have limited work experience post-grad (working as an executive recruiter for a few months and now as a real estate consultant). How much does this negatively impact my application? Specifically, I am applying for IR/Int'l Relation programs.

[Gov2School]

I think it depends on the school. For example, SIPA's application asks you to specifically list how many months of post-graduate work experience and then separately asks you to list how many months of internship/volunteer experience you've had.  And also keep in mind that when they say "average" that means "most", it doesn't mean "all". 

[Swedishcoffee]

Another confusing question I've run into on an app asks, "Indicate total number of years of relevant work experience (including full-time, part-time, and internships)."

 

In my situation (and I'm sure many others on this forum), there have been several points in my life at which my work experience is doubled up. For instance, right now I have a full-time job, but I also spend 20 hours a week interning with a nonprofit nights and weekends.

 

On one hand, I don't want to discount the extra work I've put into those second, equally-demanding jobs that have doubled my relevant professional experience during that time. On the other hand, it seems deceiving to include both. All my work (including the jobs when I've worked two at once) totals to about five years. Without including the doubled-up jobs, it's more like three years.

 

What do you guys think? Anyone else come across this conundrum?

[TimB]

Best advice I can think of is to email your program and ask. 

 

In general I've always taken work experience to mean post graduate work experience. I assume a relevant internship could count as well. 

 

I wouldn't double up jobs because it wouldn't seem to line up with the amount of time you've been out of school. Also in my experience more demanding jobs almost always demand 50-70 hour work weeks at times anyhow. 

Edited November 1, 2013 by TimB

[chocolatecheesecake]

Swedishcoffee, I'm running into the same issues on my app, and here's what I'm doing. Where Berkeley asks me for:

 

Years of full time work: I put 3 since that's how long I've been working full time since graduating.

Years of part-time work: I put 4 since I worked steadily while I was in college.

Years of volunteer work: I put 7 since I've volunteered pretty much every year since I got to school.

 

These numbers look big but I think it's being truthful, so I'm not too worried about it looking weird. Would also be happy to hear about other peoples' answers if they decided to put something different. 

[NPRjunkie]

I put full-time internship work in my experience but I had a couple years of post-college experience anyway. I think what they advertise in terms of work experience is BS anyway. Half the people in my program seemed straight out of undergrad, had a couple internships, and strutted around like they owned the place.

Edited November 10, 2013 by NPRjunkie

[Kaneisha]

I've begun a few applications for the fall 2014 term, and I have a curiosity about work experience to which a few people on this forum may know the answer.

 

When schools say, for instance, "The average student at our school has four years of work experience," do they mean four years of strictly postgrad work experience, or do they regard the summer and semester internships during undergrad as work experience? Judging by the experience of others I've known getting into such programs, it seems to be the latter, but my sample size is not large enough that I can say for sure.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

The general guideline is that they mean postgraduate (after college) full-time work experience.