enrike72 Posted August 7, 2015 Report Share Posted August 7, 2015 Hi everyone, I have a question for my TOP3 of Extracurricular Activities; I will put tenis and table tennis since I played both in competition, and For my thirs one I hesitate between swimming (recreational activities) and hicking (recreational also, but I've hicked in Himalaya during an humanitarian trip so it could be more impressive...i also hicked after in canada). What do you think is best for my third TOP 3 ? And do you think my 2 others (tennis and table tennis) are great? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 7, 2015 Report Share Posted August 7, 2015 Let CanMEDS competencies be your guide. As all these activities do not involve working as part of a team or collaboration, is there another activity to demonstrate this? Both swimming & hiking evidence fitness and a healthy lifestyle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enrike72 Posted August 7, 2015 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2015 But I though Canmeds was only for work experiences, volunteering, research no? How can we include canmeds in the extracurricular activities? Something else: can we use other skills than thr canmeds ones? For example: creativity, analytic skills.....and can wr still use "observation" despite it's not part of the canmeds anymore? Thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotASerialKiller Posted August 7, 2015 Report Share Posted August 7, 2015 But I though Canmeds was only for work experiences, volunteering, research no? How can we include canmeds in the extracurricular activities? Something else: can we use other skills than thr canmeds ones? For example: creativity, analytic skills.....and can wr still use "observation" despite it's not part of the canmeds anymore? Thanks!! You're not "using" CanMEDS in that everything has to fit exactly into their competencies or you'll be rejected. Use them as a loose guide for what they are looking for, and try to cover as many as possible so that your application is well-rounded. As Bambi mentioned, collaboration is something that you can certainly show in your ECs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 8, 2015 Report Share Posted August 8, 2015 Other examples that come to mind are expertise and scholarly attributes. Let us say you do public performances in piano and have won awards. This shows expertise, stress management as being clam under pressure, persistence, independent learning. Now if you teach tennis, piano, baseball, ballet, math, science in addition to expertise, you have developed communication skills and teaching skills. You use creativity, initiative, problem solving, adaptation to deal with the individual needs of each student. ECs can be an excellent showcase or springboard to demonstrate CanMEDS competencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maybenow Posted August 13, 2015 Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 Hey guys I'm a bit confused. You get your 48 slots to do this, and then you're also going to pick your top 2 or 3? Also, how do you pick which activities to include? For instance, I've done quite a bit of part time jobs. Can I clump them under one 'slot' so I don't use up more than 1 of the 48 slots for that? Oh and lastly, did any of you ever feel you had too many activities under one category, and not enough under another? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 13, 2015 Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 It's quality, not quantity. Sure, you can clump your part time jobs together. It can be a strategy if the qualities you developed are the same, e.g., customer service dealing with dissatisfied customers teaches you patience, tact, diplomacy, quick thinking, problem solving, active listening, communication skills and conflict resolution. If you are flipping burgers, you learn to ensure health safety, you develop management skills in ensuring you pace your production. It is not necessary to have 48 items. Be selective where you demonstrate specific qualities or developed in positive ways or made a positive contribution to others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maybenow Posted August 13, 2015 Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 It's quality, not quantity. Sure, you can clump your part time jobs together. It can be a strategy if the qualities you developed are the same, e.g., customer service dealing with dissatisfied customers teaches you patience, tact, diplomacy, quick thinking, problem solving, active listening, communication skills and conflict resolution. If you are flipping burgers, you learn to ensure health safety, you develop management skills in ensuring you pace your production. It is not necessary to have 48 items. Be selective where you demonstrate specific qualities or developed in positive ways or made a positive contribution to others. Oh yes, very true, I hadn't thought about not filling in all 48. So it's not necessarily the goal to fill in all 48? (I didn't know that) The thing though is, if you clump several customer service jobs together, do you pick just one verifier then? Because I've seen the pop up window for verifier info - so how would you go about doing that then? (I've worked a lot of random jobs over the years, to help pay for school and all, and all together they are significant in that I've learned a lot, blah blah blah, but on their own? Not so much! What would you do in this case?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 13, 2015 Report Share Posted August 13, 2015 Well, you will run into a verifier problem then. Therefore, perhaps don't clump them together and preselect carefully what activities you include. I would imagine a credible, third party verifier could verify more than one activity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverpeth Posted August 14, 2015 Report Share Posted August 14, 2015 Oh yes, very true, I hadn't thought about not filling in all 48. So it's not necessarily the goal to fill in all 48? (I didn't know that) The thing though is, if you clump several customer service jobs together, do you pick just one verifier then? Because I've seen the pop up window for verifier info - so how would you go about doing that then? (I've worked a lot of random jobs over the years, to help pay for school and all, and all together they are significant in that I've learned a lot, blah blah blah, but on their own? Not so much! What would you do in this case?). Fill the 48 with all of your experiences separated. You can have quantity while maintaining quality. Just make sure you stress the significance of each activity, and pull as much "learning" or "skills gained" from each one. Have you ever actually listed out all your activities? You seemed concerned about having too many, but I think you'd be surprised how many 48 really is. As for your comment regarding categories, if possible, try to have an even spread covering all of them. Diversity is pretty important, and from my understanding schools want to see well rounded individuals. Don't worry if one category is a fair bit larger than the others however, as that's natural. For myself, the research area was definitely the most full and I don't think it worked against me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maybenow Posted August 18, 2015 Report Share Posted August 18, 2015 Fill the 48 with all of your experiences separated. You can have quantity while maintaining quality. Just make sure you stress the significance of each activity, and pull as much "learning" or "skills gained" from each one. I want to ask something here because I think I'm missing something. I did start the OMSAS app but you get some 140 ish characters for each of the 48 activities, right? And that is all the space/words you get? So... we've been stressing the importance of really highlighting the significance of your activities, and how they go with CANMEDs, and so on... and that's literally in that little box (a pop up window) that shows up when you click to elaborate on an activity? #sorry #reallyconfused Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maybenow Posted August 18, 2015 Report Share Posted August 18, 2015 Well, you will run into a verifier problem then. Therefore, perhaps don't clump them together and preselect carefully what activities you include. I would imagine a credible, third party verifier could verify more than one activity. Ah yea Bambi you're so right. But i've just done a lot, and individually speaking they're not necessarily so impactful or were that long in duration or etc. As for third party verifier, could a prof or program supervisor who's knowns you for many years do that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 18, 2015 Report Share Posted August 18, 2015 Yes. Anybody who is credible and knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maybenow Posted August 19, 2015 Report Share Posted August 19, 2015 Yes. Anybody who is credible and knows. Oh okay, thanks. So if some prof who's known you for a few years know that you worked part time here, there, and everywhere, he/she can be a verifier. The only thing is that if the adcoms wanted further proof, you can then obtain that from the companies/stores you worked at... but at the level of just the ABS, you don't have to worry about that, so long as you have said prof who knows you worked here and there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambi Posted August 19, 2015 Report Share Posted August 19, 2015 Yes but you want to choose the person closest to the activity whenever possible, i.e., your actual employer, etc. Use the prof only as your last resort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.