Employment experience vs. Extracurriculars

[Curveball]

Hello, I hope you're all doing well.

I was wondering if anyone could comment on the difference between employment experience vs. extracurriculars when applying. Are they considered the same, or is one considered more important over the other? I ask because I have volunteer experience conducting political lobbying on behalf of a professional organization, and I have about 250 hours of volunteering in long-term care over the last few years (I actually have a total of 350 hours since 2015, but the bulk of my volunteering has been in the last 2 years because of my undergrad studies and the pandemic prevented me from volunteering after school finished). For the last three years, I also have employment experience as RN in general medicine and critical care, working a relief RN job in harm reduction, and working as a research assistant for a nursing prof (we've coauthored 3 publications, with 2 more in the process of publication). I'm wondering if it makes more sense to focus on expanding the depth of my employment experience, or looking for more volunteer experiences? 

Another concern I have is that there may be issues mentioning my work in political advocacy on the application, but I believe that the positions I've advocated for would be fairly uncontroversial within the medical community: it's been stuff related to harm reduction, as well as expanding access and funding to health services generally. The role itself involved organizing constituency meetings with MPPs, meeting with politicians at Queens Park, and organizing events where MPPs could go to health care facilities to see what RNs do. If anyone has any experience with how to handle these issues on their application, of if you were involved in similar activities, I'd be happy to hear your insights. 

[Bambi]

What is important is CanMEDS Competencies, be they work related or ECs. You are fine, plus you have medical related experiences, although they are unnecessary for your Application. Your advocacy related to expanding access and funding to health services are fine. Best of luck!

[Curveball]

On 6/18/2023 at 4:32 PM, Bambi said:

What is important is CanMEDS Competencies, be they work related or ECs. You are fine, plus you have medical related experiences, although they are unnecessary for your Application. Your advocacy related to expanding access and funding to health services are fine. Best of luck!

Thank you, I appreciate your insight. I was also wondering about the value of awards in the ABS section. I have a handful small awards, but they're probably not very impressive: they're from small nursing groups, given for small, self-directed projects I initiated on my unit related to online education and patient care quality improvement. A few of them had a monetary reward (the biggest was $2000), and a few were basically just commendations for clinical practice that probably weren't very competitive. I won all these after I graduated. I'm wondering how helpful that's really going to be in the grand scheme of things: my concern is that it's going to look like I'm listing participation trophies and stuff that looks good at a glance. On the other hand, my hope is that these awards would highlight the work I did on those projects, and draw more attention to those parts of my application. 

[Bambi]

No, in the grand scheme of things, these award will highlight the work you did on these projects!!  Look at the big picture, as will those reviewing the details of your application in assessing your competitiveness relative to others. Have confidence in yourself. Don't overthink things, you are on track. 

[Edict]

I second Bambi here, admissions reviewers are only going to view all these things positively. People aren't looking for a reason to not pick you, they are looking for reasons to pick you, and these ECs all do that. 

I would say employment and volunteering are all considered important in their own right, ideally you'd have something in both.