How Important Are Leadership Positions?

apumic
Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:49:39 +0000

^BDM is right. The best “real world experience” would include things like starting an organization or management of a company. When I mentioned teaching, I meant in a faculty or GSI capacity (where you are fully responsible for your students and have add’l responsibilities to them and the school beyond the classroom – often these faculty and GSIs do a lot of student mentoring/advising and such) or in the capacity of, say, a corporate trainer. In other words, we’re talking about jobs outside school. TAing, RAing, etc. are all great student leadership positions and can offer a lot of experience but they pale in comparison to most experiences outside academia. For real-world experiences, you pretty much have to leave your UG campus.

Freshmen orientation leaders, RAs, peer mentors, clinical precepting (i.e., at your volunteer or clinical work site), etc. are all what I might consider “mid-tier” (if club leadership is “low-tier”). They’re certainly good experiences to have, but you have to keep in mind that probably over 50% of applicants will have such experiences.