Guest avisee Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 When entering items into the Autobiographical sketch, what would you do if it was a summer job you worked at for 2 summers in a row? Would you enter it as two seperate items? It's sort of difficult to enter two discrete summers into the form the way it is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest avisee Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Or.. for that matter, what about jobs you held during the school year? Would you just list them as consecutive from the time you started (eg, September 2002) to the time you ended (eg, April 2004) with the implication that you didn't work the summer in the middle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Hi there, One option is to enter it once, indicating the full span of time in which the summer work was conducted. In the description line, if you have space, you can mention that it was a summer job. However, if you have plenty of room among your entries, i.e., you're not running out of entries, then you could always enter it as two separate items and elaborate on different aspects within each of the two lines (as much as you can in the limited space allowed). Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest avisee Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 What about declaring Employment VS Volunteer.. Some things I did weren't explicitly paid in dollars (eg, paid in freebies or paid honoraria) or were paid in dollars but were more of a volunteer position (eg, 2-3 hours a week, and not really "working" per se, more being paid for your time). Do you have a set rule for how you would distinguish the two? Or is it better to err on one side rather than the other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aneliz Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Simple rule is that if you were actually compensated for your time (paid by the hour) it is a job. If you worked and got freebies or an honourarium that would was not tied to the number of hours you worked (ie not compensated for time) it might be counted as a volunteer position...depending on how much compensation you got....that is a bit of a tougher call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest UofT Student Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Is there any specific order in which we should list our activities? For example, should the most recent activities be listed first, and we work our way back to age 16? Or perhaps we should group all related activities together regardless of time, such as all "Volunteer" grouped separately from all "Employment"? Alternatively, does order not matter at all? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Elaine I Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 The instruction booklet says to group the activities by category, rather than by date. However, since I've never applied before, I'm not sure if sorting by date is a viable option as well. Elaine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest avisee Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 I think COMPASS automatically sorts it for you - categorically by activity type (Employment/Volunteer) and within each category by date. I'm not completely sure, so you should check on this, but I did notice that after I changed a Research Assistant job from "Employment" to "Research" that it moved down to the bottom of my list. All of my other activities are lumped together by category even though I entered them pretty haphazardly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kirsteen Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 Hi there, avisee's right (at least, in past OMSAS programs), in that the OMSAS software will automatically group your extracurricular activities. It would order them first, by category and then, if I recall correctly, by date. In previous iterations of the OMSAS software you could preview your application prior to submission. By doing so you will see the order of the categories, as well as the way your data is presented to the schools--sometimes a helpful tool during the application writing process. Cheers, Kirsteen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest squeegy80 Posted July 6, 2004 Report Share Posted July 6, 2004 I have a question dealing with the aforementioned Research vs. Employment issue. I worked one summer as a Research Assistant, but most of my work was not research. Should I list this twice, as employment and then another entry just for the relatively small amount of research I did? squeegy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest blinknoodle Posted July 7, 2004 Report Share Posted July 7, 2004 I wouldn't put an item down twice - remember that they will see your entire sketch anyhow. Pick the most appropriate one and elaborate in the title. If you are applying to Ottawa, pick the section wisely since employment and research ask for different things in the detailed sketch (as far as I can remember). -bn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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