Community College advice!

frrrph
Sun, 27 May 2007 10:47:32 +0000

Well, vcoleman, to be fair I did get involved in my school community, I just didn’t have any titles to show for it. I did things like holding lectures, TA stuff, attend events, helped where I could with different campus organizations etc.

Probably the main thing is, I was extremely politically active before coming here - 24/7, and very serious about it. I didn’t think of these things as “EC:s”, but yeah, I guess you could consider them as strong such especially because I didn’t rely on any one official outlet to define my involvement. People show their passion differently - I had already gone through years and years of loyalty to a single organization, and felt there were so many different ways of organizing around these issues (leftist stuff). At the community college I am at now, for me, that turned out to be talking to my peers about issues they didn’t know about, yet (I felt) were acutely important. Neither SFJ nor MSA really had any experience with those questions, so I just went on a lecture rampage instead.

I hope people don’t look at my case and then think, oh, I can scrap EC:s as a transfer student – I do think it’s about quality and how much you put in and get out of your opportunities (timewise, school-sponsored activitywise), just like you said.

Stay away from resumepadders! Unless you get involved with groups like PTK as a way of helping good projects come to fruition (I hate to say it as I find them slightly elitist - at least at my campus - but they have had some good things going lately), and actively pursue their scholarships, it’s not going to mean anything beyond $65 less in your wallet.

At the end of the day, every school is different. Yale, for example, has a very strong emphasis on independent, creative, politically conscious thought (at least that’s the perception that drew me in ); other “prestigeous” institutions are very different. I ended up rejected at Dartmouth, and realized a week after sending in the application (and researching it a bit more) that it’d be a disasterous fit to the point where I knew I’d never ever go there, acceptance letter or not. It was the only non-quirky/political college I applied to, and I feel a little embarrassed I’d even put it on the list.

“Fit” isn’t just a comforting cliche, especially with private schools: they know what they’re doing. They’re looking for a certain kind of kid that is also looking for a certain kind of institution for mutual benefit. Bottom line, ask yourself what kind of school you’re looking for, then do your research.