<p>Hey, I am a freshman here at Cornell University and need to find a job to fulfill scholarship requirements. I found a job as a secretary/information getter/gopher at the Department of Physics Office. I want to know if this may be looked at as initiative in getting my foot in the door, or if it really doesn’t matter at all on my grad school application for a physics major. I guess it’s kind of a dumb/overachiever question, but I was just wondering. Thanks!</p>
<p>Are you going to be stuck being a gopher all through your undergrad? Do you think that somebody around the physics department might offer you a research assistantship or something similar if you put in your time for a year or so? I have a job that is designed to be office work for a year, then I’ll move into a position doing gopher work in a lab, and eventually I’ll be doing research of my own. I think that my job will be pretty good for my grad school apps, but I don’t think that only office work within a department will turn heads in graduate admissions.</p>
<p>Of course it won’t be only office work for four years. I am curious as to whether or not it is even worth mentioning when I apply.</p>
<p>Well, since applying for grad schools is a few years away, I would suggest that you wait and see how your resume fills out. I think that if you get other opportunities in the physics department, you could probably leave the office job out, but if you for some reason or another don’t get more opportunities it couldn’t hurt to have it on your apps…I’m not sure how much they would think of it, but it would definitely put you above some other applicants.</p>