{"id":28102,"date":"2016-03-28T09:30:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T13:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=28102"},"modified":"2016-03-28T09:30:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T13:30:50","slug":"getting-involved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2016\/03\/28\/getting-involved\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Involved!"},"content":{"rendered":"When applying to a professional school, many applications require an autobiographical sketch of your extra-curriculars or activities that you participate in. It allows the admissions committee to assess those \u201csoft skills\u201d such as interpersonal, leadership, and collaborative skills that are not captured in your GPA or standardized test. Whenever I\u2019ve spoken to undergraduate students, this area seems to be the one that they are the most apprehensive about. <em>What activities are they looking for? How do I stand out?<\/em> From my experience there appears to be one key aspect to engaging in extra-curriculars, and that is <strong>passion<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n<!--more-->\r\n\r\nIt may sound clich\u00e9, but it is incredibly important to enjoy the activities that you take part in. If you are involved with a club that you are passionate about, you are more inspired to take on an active role and implement ideas to make the club excel. This will demonstrate to any committee your motivation, drive and dedication with something you feel is important. Ultimately, this will demonstrate a lot about your attitude and your work ethic as well.\r\n\r\nNow you may be thinking\u2026<em>how do I find what I\u2019m passionate about?<\/em>\r\n\r\nSimple. Follow what interests you. Admissions committees do not discriminate on the interest of the activity or club. Often times, it is our interests that makes us stand out. In addition, if you are going to dedicate your time to something, it might as well be something that you enjoy. This will also demonstrate to the admissions committee your genuine interests.\r\n\r\nLastly, I sometimes hear students fret that they \u201chaven\u2019t done enough\u201d, as in, they feel compelled to join so many activities in order to make it look like they have a substantive application. I would like to emphasize that what is really important is finding the right balance. It\u2019s really quality over quantity. You don\u2019t want to spread yourself too thin so that your active involvement between clubs becomes limited. Again, it is important to ensure that you demonstrate your dedication to the activity, and taking on too much can hinder this \u2013 often times, admissions committees can pick up on this.\r\n\r\nUltimately, one cannot know exactly what admissions committees are looking for \u2013 but you can never go wrong with just being yourself!\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_28103\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28103\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2016\/03\/PHE.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-28103 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2016\/03\/PHE-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"PHE\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2016\/03\/PHE-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2016\/03\/PHE-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/files\/2016\/03\/PHE.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28103\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">During my undergrad, I had a great time volunteering with the UTM Health and Counselling Centre Peer Health Education team!<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When applying to a professional school, many applications require an autobiographical sketch of your extra-curriculars or activities that you participate in. It allows the admissions committee to assess those \u201csoft skills\u201d such as interpersonal, leadership, and collaborative skills that are not captured in your GPA or standardized test. Whenever I\u2019ve spoken to undergraduate students, this area seems to be the one that they are the most apprehensive about. <em>What activities are they looking for? How do I stand out?<\/em> From my experience there appears to be one key aspect to engaging in extra-curriculars, and that is <strong>passion<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2016\/03\/28\/getting-involved\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Getting Involved!&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28126,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28102\/revisions\/28126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}