Important categories in a CV? Potential MS/PhD advisor asked for a CV.

[chem.eng]

A professor has replied back to me asking for my CV, I went through google search but they all tend to show CVs of already graduated students from MS/PhDs...as an undergrad applying for grad school, what important things should I list?

 

(Chem eng background btw)

 

Currently I have:

Contact info

Education

research experience

work experience

 

should I include my extra curricular activities (competitions, conferences etc.)? or that's irrelevant? 

where do i include my knowledge with different softwares?

 

It's kinda urgent, thanks

[GCool]

I'd include your extracurricular accolades if they're recent. I wouldn't necessarily mention all of your activites throughout school. Success outside of the classroom is important, but not as much on a CV as on a resume. If you feel like you can do without mentioning a 2nd place finish in your local beer league softball tournament, leave it off.

 

Knowledge of software depends on where you became familiarized with it most, be it research or work. List it where you'll be able to talk about it at length if an interviewer says "Oh, I see you used Empower 3 when working with GC's in your research lab". If you don't have much to say about your work experience with software, why list it there? An interviewer may think you're jumping around.

 

Hope that helps!

[chem.eng]

Thanks! I think it does make sense to include software in that context, listing is not the best idea.

 

So the few recent activities I want to add, what category should I put them under? 

[GCool]

Something like "Activities" would be fine. Set it apart from everything else at the end.

[TakeruK]

If you presented at conferences (even if it's student conferences) then you should list them too. People who have published papers usually have a section for "Publications" which then gets subdivided into "peer reviewed articles" and "presentations". If you don't have any papers, you can just have a "presentations" heading. I would put this section right after research experience.

 

I would also list a section for awards/fellowships/scholarships. If you have major (i.e. highly competitive merit based) awards then I might list them right after education, otherwise I might list them after publications.

 

I chose to list my extracurriculars on my CV, in the last section (I called it "other experience" but "activities" are good too). Profs usually list things like outreach involvement, students they mentored, professional society memberships, etc. here. For me, I listed things like student organization involvement etc. I chose a mix of academic and non-academic things because I want to present a message that I do not want to spend 100% of time focused on work/research. 

 

Finally, for grad school applications, you might find it useful to list a "skills" or "expertise" section, especially if you are applying to an experimental/lab based grad program. I agree with GCool that you can also list this as part of your research experience. However, you can list specific software or lab techniques that you've mastered in a short section that a potential supervisor can glance at and know where you could fit into their research program.