service work

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz]

What do people have to say about doing service work (committees, clubs, etc.) while in grad school?

[TakeruK]

I have done a lot of service work in the last 5 years! I have a few things to say, on different topics:

 

"Direct" usefulness for academic jobs after grad school:

It would depend on the nature of the service, but for the most part, I don't think it is directly useful to getting a post-graduate school academic job. I doubt there will be very many committees that go "Oh yay! This candidate lead the school's Chess Club, let's hire them!" Of course, some clubs or service might be more relevant, i.e. leadership positions indicate you have good leadership skills, which might be a small boost, or if you were involved in something like an outreach or teaching club, it might give a small boost towards those aspects of your character/experience. But a counter-argument to this is that the service work takes up more time than it is "worth" the boost. That is, many others argue that you can spend that time doing something else to directly boost your application (maybe more research or teaching, depending on the type of job you're seeking).

 

One exception, I think, that does provide direct benefits to gaining an academic job is service as things like journal referee, grant review board, etc. Mostly because if you are invited/asked to do these things, it's an indication of recognition of your expertise in the field!

 

"Indirect" usefulness for post-grad school plans:

I do think the experience of some service positions will help you in indirect ways though. You might gain insight into the inner workings of how an academic department runs/works. For example, if you are the grad student rep on a hiring or promotion committee, that might give you insight on how to structure your applications in the future. Or, even just being the grad student rep that attends the faculty meetings could provide interesting insights. Not all schools/programs allow grad students to be part of these meetings though. I think this is useful at both the department and the campus level. Department meetings might be closed to students, but there is usually some student representation (through the grad student government) at the big campus-wide faculty boards. So going through your student government might be a way to do this. Or, if your school/department is hosting a conference in your field, being part of the Local Organizing Committee could be good too.

 

Also, in addition to insights, service work might help you build stronger relationships with faculty and administrators at your department/school. Especially if the work you are doing is something that is much needed, people will be appreciative! I guess one down side to this is that if you commit to too many "useful but not academically relevant" service work, people might begin to see you less of a scholar, unfortunately. For example, if you have great design skills, you might always be recruited to create conference booklets/programs, and people might overlook you for more academically inclined work. So it's a double edged sword!

 

For fun/passion!

And finally, I think the main reason I do service work is because it is fun and because I am passionate about the issues I spend my time on. I think it's nice to have something else to do at school other than being a grad student. Also, sometimes research problems take a very long time to fix or takes a long time to see any payoff/results, but service work may have shorter timeframes (unless they involve trying to change school policies lol). It is satisfying to see something you've worked on become successful! And doubly satisfying when you can help someone. I am also the type of person that when I see something that needs to be improved and I know how to do it, I feel an obligation to make it happen! After all, I think many of the benefits I enjoy today as a grad student were hard fought by former generations of students/professors. So, I am motivated to do work that improves policies even if it does not benefit me.

 

 

Overall, I think service work is something I really enjoy doing in my "spare" time. I feel that it is rewarding and I enjoy thinking about non-scientific problems The direct and indirect benefits above are nice, but not really my main reason for doing it. However, those extra insights have been useful to me and have also guided a lot of the posts I make here on TheGradCafe!

[rising_star]

What level of service are you talking about? There are differences between departmental, university-wide, and national service. I focused on the latter in grad school and I don't particularly regret it. I was never that involved in service work for my department, in part because I didn't want to be (lots of internal politics I was trying to avoid). At the same time, I did service work for the national association for like 6 years as a grad student and it was a valuable experience in terms of networking, making a difference, and learning about association governance. 

 

There's also the level of commitment issue. At my PhD university, there were easy opportunities to do service without having to, for example, attend meetings every single week. Such opportunities are things like judging an undergraduate poster conference (which takes 2-3 hours on a Friday) or evaluating graduate student travel grant applications (takes 5-6 hours max). These are relatively easy to do and still count as service which you can list on your CV. Also, reviewing those travel grant applications made it easier to write my own because I had a better sense of what the reviewers were looking for and how to make it easy for the reviewer to find exactly the information they needed. 

[fuzzylogician]

I did a lot of department-level and a bit of university-level service while in grad school. Right now I am mostly doing national service with my field's professional association.* I think TakeruK summarized the benefits that can be had from doing service very well. I do things that don't require too much of a time commitment but do require some initiative (=for anything to happen, there needs to be someone whose job it is to stay on top of things and delegate/get stuff done). It's helped me learn how things really operate behind the scenes in a way that I think most grad students are kind of oblivious to. In the grand scheme of things, I think it's useful for understanding academia if you want an academic job and it has benefits if you want a non-academic job. That said, most people don't get involved in service, and there are good reasons for that. It's not particularly valued, compared to other things that you could spend your time on (research!, and even teaching), and it can be very frustrating. It seems to me that there is a kind of person who gets involved and a kind of person who doesn't. The ones who stay at it are the ones who learn to enjoy it and grow from it, and the ones who leave or don't get involved in the first place are the ones who can't stand the thumb twiddling and time waste that can often happen.

 

* I put aside abstract/manuscript reviewing, which is something everyone in academia does on some level. I am more thinking about committee/event organizing type service here.

[maelia8]

I work for a humanities institute at my university as a part-time job (paid) and I also represent my department at the university-wide graduate assembly. As the GA rep, I work closely with the departmental graduate association leader and the union representative to make sure that our departmental concerns are coming up in GA discussions, but mostly I enjoy going to the meetings because it gives me a chance to see what people in other departments are doing, hear about lots of fun sponsored events for graduate students at my university, and understand how departments function, especially in terms of funding dispersal. I've always been interested in university administration and institutional dynamics, so I guess I'm the "kind of person who gets involved," but I think that anyone can dip their toe into university service work and get something out of it.

[TakeruK]

What a surprise that regular posters at TheGradCafe are also the people that "get involved" at their schools lol

[mandarin.orange]

I'd say it's a worthwhile experience, broadly speaking. If you do continue in the academy as a professor, it's good experience to round out your CV. In addition, you have the experience to be savvy about what service to focus on as a young faculty member.

 

I've been fortunate to have fellowships that released me from teaching duties more than once during my PhD. I often tried to "give back" those years and served for my dept. or broader grad organization. I did get roped into an additional, unplanned year after that for an ad hoc committee within my dept. I largely regret THAT particular experience as a time-sink, and largely felt like I was nothing more than the committee's female "diversity add." In the end I guess it did make me resilient, and I learned (many unpleasant) things about certain personalities/current leadership. I know I will be more choosy in the future and protective of my time and not get suckered into more than I can handle at a new institution.  

 

As a more senior grad, I am now looking less to serve in my dept (esp. after the above experience) except for short-term/one-time stuff, and more towards professional societies or other things in my discipline. I just finished a stint on a planning committee for a specialized conference...it was pretty cool to see the decision-making behind venue, choice of keynote speakers, conference events, budget, etc. and have a say in the planning. My teaching load is light again this summer and next academic year, so I'm volunteering at a local museum for the collections/curatorial experience. 

 

I see service as an inherent part of being an academic. My view has changed over the years -- I wanted nothing to do with it as a high school teacher. Sadly I found out the hard way that when you are not invested in the future of the institution, the direction of your field, or even just keeping tabs on, say, what your union is up to...you are all the more vulnerable to unjust procedures or nasty "surprises" in your benefits, pay, teaching load, etc. Fellow teachers and I were blindsided by a pay freeze one year because the communication between admin and faculty was so broken. But, be choosy and ready to defend your time if a service commitment does not work with your goals, even in some small way. I've seen peers roped into service on five committees in their early years of a new position...that is a serious burden, and should not be the priority at that career stage. I often recommend this post to others as an excellent break-down of useful vs. useless service for young faculty. 

Edited July 9, 2015 by mandarin.orange

[music]

In my 1st year I did no "service" except being nominated to the board of a sports society that I am active in. During my 2nd year I'll be serving on the department's grad student committee, which is a time heavy role but will gain me some brownie points with faculty and staff, and give me insight into the workings of the university - I consider these benefits to be worth the time, since I'm the kind of person who would consider administrative/consulting careers after graduation and this is my first time in a university environment. I also got elected to the university-wide health committee which could hardly be less related to my research, but is a personal interest and, honestly, I felt like my CV was severely lacking in service-related activity which one one reason I stood for election. Again, that only pertains to my desire to keep non-faculty jobs open as a post-graduation option. I'll consider standing for an arts-related committee in my 3rd year. These kinds of committees are very low on time/effort requirements or I wouldn't bother.

 

I opted to take a work-from-home internship with a non-profit directly related to my dissertation work, and I am thinking of that as more the kind of "service" that is mutually beneficial - it's the only kind that will speed my academic progress and help with the kind of networking that is already benefiting my research. I'll likely continue with this kind of thing through my PhD, but curtail the university-related service to focus on my dissertation beyond year 3.

[eeee1923]

During my MS, I've been quite involved with community outreach, especially for the underrepresented groups in STEM. This mostly involves 2 short meetings a week and tutoring at a local church one day a week. I don't know if it gives me any professional advantages but I enjoy seeing my students tell me that they got B+'s and A's where they were previously getting D's and C's and pretty sure that STEM was not for them. I also help undergrads (at an unofficial capacity) with plans of studies and possible career paths. The GradCafe is quite helpful in opening my eyes to all the opportunities out there which I then convey to the undergrads. 

[quirkycase]

I hope to get involved in service work during grad school, so this info has been helpful.  I wasn't involved in much of anything during undergrad, which I sort of regret.  I would like to be more involved this time around.  Maybe this is a bit of a dumb question, but how do you typically find out about opportunities available to grad students with regards to service work (both institutional and outreach)? 

 

I know exactly what you mean, eteshoe. I was a tutor at a community college for two years, and it was really rewarding.  I too loved when the students I (and others) had tutored would rush into the office to let us know they'd gotten an A on a final or even managed a B on a class they were almost failing earlier in the semester.  For me, it was especially great to watch students gain more confidence in their abilities and even grow to love subjects they had hated!

[fuzzylogician]

You're in the UK (right?) so I'm not sure this will be useful because things might be very different. But: for service in your department, you can generally do one of two things. Either reply to an email asking for volunteers for something, or (better, I think) identify the position you would like to have, and find a way to volunteer for it. My department was very organized, and very student centric. Students run 3-4 reading groups weekly, a colloquium series, a less formal brown bag lunch series, each run by two students on a rotating basis (you volunteer for a year, normally), and there are two student reps that attend faculty meetings and so on. On top of that there was an occasional other thing that needed a volunteer like sitting on a committee, help with the weekly newsletter, etc. We had student meetings at the beginning and end of each semester, and a bunch of these positions were discussed and got volunteers. If your department isn't as organized (most aren't), you probably need to identify the thing you want to do and ask how you can get involved with it. For example, if there is a colloquium series, if you ask to get involved I bet no one will say no. It's a lot of work, but you also learn a lot. Or if someone is organizing a conference or workshop around you, ask if they need students to help out. For all of these things, it probably makes sense to first get to the new school and spend at least a few weeks, maybe a semester, just observing and learning what's out there. There will be enough difficulty adjusting without taking on extra responsibilities that first semester. 

 

For university-level work, again there are the two ways to get involved that I already mentioned. If you read the emails from your graduate student union, I bet almost each one will say they are looking for volunteers for something or other, and once in a while there will be an email asking for student-volunteers for some university-level committee like hiring a new Dean, etc. Or you can just go to the student union and ask how to get involved. For society-level work, I guess I am not sure if there is a UK-specific linguistic society (since your signature says you're a linguist); if you are a member of the LSA, there are several committees that anyone can volunteer for, for example a relevant one is COSIAC (the Committee on Student Issues and Concerns) and there are committees concentrating on minorities and women's issues. Members live all over, so a lot happens over email. 

[quirkycase]

Thanks for the info, fuzzylogician.

 

Wow--your department sounds like it was super organized.  It'd be nice if mine turns out to be that organized, but I definitely won't be expecting it. And I agree that taking on too much the first semester is ill-advised.  I plan to wait until the second semester or so before trying to involve myself in much.  I just wanted to get an idea of what to look out for and potential ways to get involved.  Like you said, it might be different in the UK, but now at least I'll have a starting point. 

 

There is a UK-specific linguistics society (Linguistics Association of Great Britian [LAGB]), so I'll look into if they offer similar opportunities as the LSA.

[Horb]

I'm currently going into my second year. My second semester of grad school, I volunteered outside the school through a local domestic violence nonprofit. If academia doesn't work out, I'd like to work in a non-profit that is social justice oriented and I also like giving back to my community. Going into my second year, I'm a fellowship advisor for my department/school (I have a job and also serve on a committee within my department). I'm going to have to scale back this coming year, but we will see.