Get Involved, it’s important!

By Beverly Asante, Toppel Peer Advisor

This last weekend, I got the opportunity to go to Jamaica to compete in the Pan American Universities Debating Championship. Essentially, I spent five days in a beautiful Island debating.  How you ask? I got involved. I took advantage of the opportunities provided by this amazing University. I joined an organization where I felt I belonged, filled with individuals who share the same passion I do. Joining a club or a student organization is one of the best things you can do while you’re in college. Below is a few reasons why.

It looks good on your resume

Of course employers look at your grades. They matter. Of course they look at where you got your undergraduate degree, that also matters. However, a lot of students forget that employers come across countless numbers of job applicants of students who went to these amazing colleges and got these amazing grades. The point is, they see so many qualified applicants that good grades and a good college isn’t enough to get hired. It’s not even the bare minimum. What sets your application apart is your activities section. This is the section where you can include any volunteer work as well as any clubs or organizations you are involved in. Having this on your resume shows employers that you can multitask. Not only can you handle a rigorous course load but you’re also a leader outside of the classroom. Anyone can say they got good grades, but not everyone can say that they got good grades while being an intercollegiate debater, or the head of the economics club. These are the type of things that personalizes your application and gives employers a better understanding of who you are and what you like.

It becomes your second family

Everyone who knows me knows that I love to sing.  One of the biggest things I wanted to do when I first arrived on campus was join a singing group. I did and it was one of the best decisions I made. I did much more than sing. I grew a bond with these people. I was a lost freshman in August and I didn’t have many friends. The thing about clubs is that they force you to make relationships. They force you to meet new people and experience different things. What you do with those people is at your discretion. In my case, these student organization served as a great networking tool. Thus opening the door for friendships I can see myself having even after I graduate. I was surrounded by individuals who made me want to sing better, who made me think critically. Individuals who motivated me to be better. Joining a club made being in a different state away from my family bearable. It fostered a sense of community that I definitely needed at this fragile time in my life. I grew to love my fellow choristers, we connected with our voices and my heart soared knowing that there were people just like me who shared my love. Music.

If you take anything away from this post, please let it be that joining a club is a wise decision. It can be the start of friendships, it can be a great networking tool, it can even be the reason you get hired. Who knows, maybe you might share a few extracurricular activities in common with your employer.  Or the president of one your clubs might know someone who is hiring in your desired field. The point is, you will never know what opportunities lie ahead unless you actually get out and get involved.

Why Getting Involved On Campus Can Benefit the Job Search

By Melissa Wyatt, Toppel Peer Advisor

Many people believe that only jobs and internships should be a part of your resume – but  especially for college students, this just isn’t true! Getting involved on campus is one of the best things you can do to aid your job search. Though work experience is still crucial, on-campus leadership will develop a skill set that an internship never could. Instead of answering phones or running errands, an on-campus leadership position provides experiences that will benefit you for years to come.

Campus involvement gives you the opportunity to take charge of an organization and demonstrate your leadership, communication, and conflict management skills. By organizing a campus event, you can hone your problem-solving skills, learn how to coordinate resources, and become an effective manager. By being a part of an executive board, you learn how to negotiate with and persuade both your peers and administrators. In an interview, you’ll be able to back your skill set with examples!

By being involved on campus, you can show employers that you’re ready for a professional environment. Taking on responsibility in your extracurricular activities demonstrates your accountability, execution skills, and capacity to be a leader.

So how do you put this on resume? Better yet, how do you discuss your campus involvement in a job interview? Describe your positions with Project-Action-Result statements. Don’t just state what you did; explain your unique contributions to a project and what you achieved by completing it. This will demonstrate exactly what you can contribute to a company, and it will show employers why they should hire you.

To sum it up: getting involved on campus gives you the opportunity to hone your skill set and spearhead projects – something that usually doesn’t happen in an internship. Differentiate yourself from other candidates, and show employers that you can handle responsibility and achieve proven results. Good luck!

College Is More Than Your Books

By Marian Li, Toppel Peer Advisor

It’s a new year and a new semester, and possibly, even a new you. Now that you’ve gotten a better hold on the academic pace college has, it’s time to explore your interests and have fun at the same time. There are so many opportunities for you to get involved; you owe it to yourself to get the most out of your four years here at the University of Miami.

Learning New Things – Every experience you have builds on what you already know. You get a chance to put yourself into problem-solving situations or try something “hands on”, lessons learned from projects or working with others stick with us much longer than those theoretical scenarios we learn in class. There are so many ways to get involved and each has something different that it brings to the table. In the university environment, there is a myriad of student organizations that cater to individuals’ interest niche.

Build Your Resume – Your resume is something that should constantly be improved by the diverse things you do in life, hence why we call it your “working resume” here at Toppel. Students have a preconceived notion that only paid positions or internships are allowed in their required Experience section; although work is one way to build the resume, activities or organizations that showcase student leadership can also demonstrate what you have to offer to future employers.

Increase Scholarship Opportunities – Scholarships can play an important part in paying for college. The more prospects you have for scholarships, the higher probability of earning a type of financial aid that you don’t have to pay back. Clubs, organizations, and activities sometimes have scholarships tied into them. If not, activities will be helpful when completing scholarship applications.

Develop Stronger Personal Skills – A person changes and grows with each new experience. Getting involved might provide the chance to take a leadership role in an organization or club. That would be a way for you to learn more about how to lead people and groups. Even if you don’t have a leadership position, you would learn key teamwork strategies seen in your future workplace.

Meet New People – This is one of the most important reasons to get involved, in my opinion. You have the chance to meet so many new people from various cultures and with different perspectives. All the people you encounter in activities and organizations have traits you can learn from. More importantly, it creates a sense of community, especially since college is usually a foreign environment.

Getting involved helps discover new friends with similar interests. Who know, you may meet someone who will be your friend for life. Getting involved has so many benefits. Some you see right away and others that build with time. I know I enjoyed all the activities and clubs I’m involved in so close your books and take a trip to the Student Activities Center (SAC)!

Take it From Chuck! 5 Ways Chuck Norris Can Help You Be a Better Student

Written by Thien Van Tran

“There’s no way all those ridiculous facts about Chuck Norris could be true, they’re so far-fetched,” said no one ever. Everyone wants to be like Chuck, in every way. And while that’s so highly impossible that it’s completely laughable, there’s something we can all take away from this. It’s like when people say aim for the stars and hit the moon; we should have our aspirations of mimicking Chuck, and hopefully learn something that we can apply to our own lives. Me? I just need to apply more tanning oil. These guns could use some color.

Chuck Norris Was Never Aware of the Filming of Walker, Texas Ranger

He had no idea that his daily life was being watched by millions of adoring fans who followed his every move. Rather than caring about what others thought about him, he continued to be an awesome, hyper-masculine human being. But people judge. That’s just human nature. You know there’s that nerdy club with all the engineers, the muscle-bound frat boys, and the weird music school Acapella groups. While these stereotypes aren’t always true, some people get caught up in how they think others will view them. Forget that, do what you want. Study what you want, and be happy.

When Chuck Norris Left for College, He Told His Dad, “You’re the Man of the House Now”

Sometimes you have to leave your home or your comfort zone in order to discover new interests. You may not know anyone in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, but that shouldn’t stop you from joining in order to partake in the many design competitions and projects. And this applies to any activity or group! You don’t have to be super smart or a science genius to join the robotics club. Some of us are cut out for math, and some aren’t. I found out at a very young age, when a teacher asked me, “If you had 10 lollipops and I took half away, what would I have?” A broken arm.

When Chuck Norris Gets Bored, He Tells Himself Jokes He’s Never Heard Before

Don’t just sit around and twiddle your thumbs if you find that you have some down time once in a while. Never sit still. Either start your work early so that you are ahead, or find some other activities to do. Find an on campus job! Join an organization! Make some angel hair pasta! Go to the gym! Being like Chuck will take some work. I mean, Chuck Norris has muscles in places where I don’t even have places.

When Life Hands Chuck Norris Lemons, He Makes Grape Juice

I have no idea why the “When life hands you lemons…” saying even exists. How does that signify taking a negative situation and turning it into a positive one? Lemons are PERFECT for making lemonade! When life hands you lemons, you say THANK YOU. But in any case, when life hands you something you don’t want, you can still make the best of it. If you get stuck with an 8AM class that you have to take, so be it. Schedule your other classes earlier in the day so that you’re finished sooner. If the sorority you wanted to join didn’t give you a bid, so be it. Kill them. Cry about it. Drown your sorrows. Knit. Rush another sorority! Maybe that one wasn’t the right one for you anyway.

When Chuck Norris Was Born, the Doctor Said, “Congratulations, it’s a MAN”

Be confident in yourself! This applies mainly to interviewing situations. Everyone gets nervous to some degree, but remember: the interviewers want to talk to you for a reason, so there is something they like about you. You have some skill set or some strength that drew them to you, so just be yourself.

Top 3 Reasons Why Engineers Don't Get Involved in Extracurriculars

By Thien Van Tran

Where the grub at?

The college life of an engineer is very similar to that of a caterpillar. We enjoy a relatively stress-free life consisting of stuffing our faces exclusively with whatever we want and unadulterated amounts of doing absolutely nothing, prior to college. Upon entering college, we are content with temporarily giving up all that previous nonsensical frolicking in order to focus on becoming engineers. However, while a caterpillar spends approximately two weeks inside the cocoon, we spend four years.

Nowhere is it written that you can only have a single passion in life. Now unless you’re Squidward, there’s a good chance that you don't completely hate having fun. So why don’t we actually devote some time to these things that make us happy? I know that some of you are reading this and thinking, “But I am involved!” Well the only thing I have to say to that is, Cool story bro “Keep up the good work!” Anyway, here are the top three reasons.

3. “My Major is Too Difficult”

We’ve all heard this one before. Engineers seem to think their major is the toughest, and that they can’t be as active as everyone else since they need to devote more time to studying. For the most part this is, without a doubt, absolutely false. Difficulty is relative, and something that one individual may find difficult may in fact seem very simple to another individual. Sure some of our classes may require a bit more work, but it is definitely possible to make time for activities outside of school. You just need to manage your time wisely. Some helpful tips regarding time management can be found in a previous Toppel blog post, imaginatively titled, Time Management by Oleg Ignatenko.

2. "I’m an Engineer, so People Expect Me to be Anti-Social"

Engineers are known to be weird, quirky, photogenic, awkward, and often difficult to connect with on any sort of level. Trying to talk to an engineer can be a socially unpleasant experience, like walking over hot coals or any type of butt surgery. Listening to someone use big and possibly made-up words like “derivative” and “zirconium” is like trying to understand someone with a thick southern accent layer of peanut butter stuck to the roof of his/her mouth. It's an entirely different language. I'M TALKIN' STRAIGHT UP JAPANESE HERE FOLKS. But it’s okay, since all engineers are expected to act this way, right? Well first of all, it’s okay to be peculiar, but one should still be able to communicate effectively. Second of all, no.

Networking is the best way to land a job. There is a statistic somewhere from a highly trusted source (read: the internet) that says most candidates are hired through networking rather than online job postings. And in order to network, you need to have the soft skills that are not taught in the classrooms. Recently, companies are moving towards more behavioral-based interviews. These operate on the premise that an individual’s past performance indicates future performance. Therefore, having good social and interpersonal skills are necessary to communicate your experiences to your interviewer, or potential employers.

1. "I Should Focus All My Attention on Academics, Since That’s All Employers Care About"

Yes academics and grades are important, but so are the things you are passionate about. Employers will consider your academic performance, but what really sets you apart from the pack is your involvement. It doesn’t matter if the clubs or sports you participate in are unrelated to your desired career field. There are specific qualities that are transferable to almost any situation, like teamwork, leadership, and communication skills.

So if you’ve read this and decided to make an effort to becoming more involved, what’s next? Well, if you happen to be an engineer, then I would suggest you start with the multitude of engineering organizations on campus, such as Society of Women Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, etc. These organizations attend annual conferences where you can meet and network with professional engineers and companies, as well as fellow students across the country. In addition to these professional groups, make an effort to try a new club or sport, like wakeboarding, beach volleyball, or fencing. You never know where it may take you.