Extracurricular Experience and Activities

[KenBesonders]

From what I understand being involved in different types of activities helps set apart a grad school resume and can build attractiveness. I want to open this thread to share experiences of what grad school students or applicants have done in terms of activities or volunteer experience and how it might have benefited your grad school applications.

 

On my end, I was heavily involved in Model United Nations at my university and won a lot of awards. It also really helped my research skills since the organization was rather intense in competing. 

 

I am now staffing Model UN conferences because it is fun and sometimes the conference will cover cost of travel. I intend to go into IR so hopefully it will look good on the resume.

 

Overall, I think Model UN, if available, is a great way for undergrads interested in IR to help build up their skills and knowledge.

[Glitter1nTheAir]

As someone who is applying from an unrelated bachelor's degree (BA Integrative Biology), I think that my extracurriculars are what really got me noticed since one of my areas of specialization will be nonprofit management. Although, I do think my bio degree helped a little bit because one of my areas of specialization I put down is environmental policy and I also expressed interest in health care policy.

 

I volunteered and gained a lot of leadership experience through Kiwanis International-sponsored service leadership clubs in both high school and undergrad. I was very heavily involved not only on the campus level, but on the district level and won awards and recognition on the district and international level.

I was also a co-founder of a student organization on my campus to provide events and resources to undergrads in my department.

 

Currently, I am serving as an AmeriCorp VISTA member.