UBC app question: employment or Non-academ activity

[drmd2015]

I've been working on my UBC app and I'm not sure if this goes under employment or EC.

 

I'm a summer student in a lab and I get paid a studentship/stipend

 

thanks

 

[NewfieMike]

I've been working on my UBC app and I'm not sure if this goes under employment or EC.

 

I'm a summer student in a lab and I get paid a studentship/stipend

 

thanks

 

 

paid = employment

[thami]

I've heard conflicting advice on this. UBC says that in general, employment should go in the Employment Section and not in the NAQ, since your NAQ is calculated taking everything into account. I say in general, because if you read their step-by-step help under the Service Ethic section, it states:

 

These experiences exhibit involvement in activities that demonstrate participation for the benefit or welfare of others. They can include volunteer activities (generally considered positions without monetary compensation) as well as work experiences (which, as a reminder, should typically be listed in the Employment History section)

 

What I ended up doing was to have most of my Employment in the Employment section, but have the jobs that really reflected the qualities asked for in the NAQ section, in the NAQ portion. I thought this was important, given that if I didn't move some over, in some sections I would be down to only 2 or 3 entries. I don't think you would be penalized for doing that. I have held 4 research positions over my undergrad, and I put 2 of them in Employment, 1 in Service (because my duties were mainly "helping" and diligence type things), and 1 in Diversity (because my duty was to mainly be trained on the project).

 

I did have a friend (in UBC Med) tell me that Employment is a good way to get points in more than one category, if you are really lacking in activities globally/across the sections, as long as you phrase things that address those qualities the right way. In my case only one or two categories were lacking so I chose to fill them in with employment.

 

So, choose the route that you think will help rack up the points. Again, I highly doubt you will be penalized.

 

Good luck. I'm in the same application cycle this year.

[aquadon]

I've spoken with UBC about this before and typically if it is a "stipend" i.e. you are making significantly less than a decent hourly wage ($10 or less) it can be considered an Honorarium and thus NAQ or Employment. Keep in mind that you should make this clear in the NAQ part of the application - e.g. "I volunteered in lab doing blah, blah, and blah and received an honorarium/stipend" in fact it can add strength to your accomplishment/responsibility.

 

In a previous year I have put these grey area research activities under NAQ, but this year I ran out of characters so moved them over to employment to make more room!