EC's - First Year

[Guest wab8611]

i will be attending UofT st george in fall, and i'm starting to think of the EC that i could have during first year.

 

-first im going to be returning to Air Cadets in November as an officer/instructor.

-i will also be applying to several hospitals to volunteer throughout the year

-i will also take part in several school clubs.. but i was wondering how do we use this as an EC. b/c ppl could sign up for a club and be on the list but not attend the meetings. also i was wondering if joining a premed club is considered an EC

 

well thats mainly all im going to do first year since i want to consentrate on my transition into university.

 

give me your opinion on my ECs for First Year..

 

thanks

wab8611

[Guest rubberoduck]

too much work for yourself. I suppose you're coming from highschool. apparently UofT St George's first year is notoriously tough. I have not heard of many people who can manage to do so many things without letting their grades suffer or losing a lot of sleep

[Guest 4shattered4]

I had this wonderful plan the summer after Grade 12 where I would join all these clubs, volunteer, play tons of piano, and get very involved. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that well :\

 

Do you commute? I know it's not an excuse and there's probably tons of commuters who get very involved and have stellar grades, but I couldn't juggle so much. I had to drop lots of clubs as the year went by unfortunately and now my EC's are very so-so.

 

In terms of whether your plan shows how involved you will be, I think it looks great. However, keeping it up will take effort, but you'll probably make it;)

[Guest endingsoon]

Joining clubs is considered an EC, but to warn you like 99.999999999%of premed keeners jpin the premed club and volunteer at a hospital and join the (insert name of club that looks good on resume here).

 

I think the key is to be a little bit differnet, and the only way to do this is to do things you like doing. Do you like hanging around with other premed keeners and attending meetings with pizza while people who are NOT in med school tell you how to get in? or would you rather play basketball or join the debate team or be a computer lab monitor?

 

In the end I really don't think it matters so much what exactly you do as it does that you acutally do something outside of school and that you are interested in what you do (ie - its a true reflection of yourself).

[Guest Zen]

I think great advise has been offered here. Even if your EC's are cliche in first year, that's fine. I didn't even have the cliche EC's in my first year and managed to get accepted. So first off, don't panic :-)

 

In terms of time management, I wouldn't discourage you from taking on what you plan, keep your enthusiasm. I would recommend however that you only officially commit to maybe one EC. For example, most hospitals will require a minimum of one year commitment for volunteers. I think this is fine for first year, if you feel capable. Keep your other EC's relatively flexible for the begining of first year while you are getting your feet wet with university life, so that if you find you've taken on too much or your school work begins to suffer you can stop attending to them. This way you don't have to sell yourself shoft, and you can later cite a long history of involvement with at least one EC, which will demonstrate your ability to commit.

 

Although people here have shared some valueable experiences, and you should take them into account, do not be discouraged from pursuing anything you feel you are capable of doing.

 

Best of luck.

[Guest wab8611]

thanks everyone.. i will think about this throughout the summer