You’ve probably heard of ECA or extracurricular activities but what exactly are they? How can you find them and how can they help you advance your career?
Extracurricular activities are the experiences or knowledge gained outside of your study or academic degree. Enrolling at a university can be one of the most important stepping stones for a student to navigate and explore various sectors of activity because a university opens up a wide range of exciting opportunities for an individual. In this blog, I have highlighted the ones that stand out as unique and common or that may be easily related to or highlighted on a CV.
- Ambassadorship: We may have heard the terms Campus Ambassador, Event Ambassador, or Brand Ambassador before. But what exactly are they and what are their responsibilities? As we all know, ambassadorship is mainly involved with promoting or marketing a specific brand or company. It is all about reaching out to your network. For example, if a company or organization is launching an event or competition, they may hire an event ambassador whose role is to publicize the event and suggest it to their network in order to attract more applicants and gain more attention. A campus ambassador is hired by a company or organization to promote its activities and events to students on campus. It can be challenging for an outsider to arrange an event or workshop on a particular campus. That is where campus ambassadors step in to help you process or gain easy access to it. A brand ambassador is a person who promotes a particular brand. Finally, these three can be relatively similar and have the same functions but depend on tenure and performance. Keep an eye out for ambassador recruiting posts on various companies’ and youth organizations’ social media posts and websites.
- Volunteering: “Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless,” Anderson Sherry. You can always volunteer for a humanitarian organization or charitable cause. Most NGOs hire volunteers. Student volunteers may be hired by the humanitarian organization or any other organization to help and work on their activities and endeavors.
- Internship: As a student, you may find many paid or unpaid internship opportunities for various companies that last up to 4 to 5 months. It can be a fantastic opportunity to gain job experience by working with corporates and seniors. A certificate might be useful and will help your CV. You can also get a promotion and earn a paid job in that same company, organization.
- Competitions: Competition is a great way to improve your analytical and problem-solving skills. There are various types of competitions such as essay, debate competitions. Every year, many competitions or events are hosted at different universities or organizations. This might be very challenging but the rewards can be tremendous and winning a competition will give you recognition and much motivation. Follow the club pages of different organizations that conduct such competitions to find out when one is coming near you.
- Clubbing: Every university has many clubs such as a career club, photographic club and IT club. You can always find a club that matches your passions. It is one of the best places to network with people. If you get promoted to the Executive Board or Sub-Executive Board, you will have a chance in finding a job or gaining popularity at your university. Getting a promotion takes diligence and dedication as well as accountability. Working for an event can provide you with firsthand knowledge of how an event operates. Clubbing is a great place to learn new skills and grow yourself as an individual. Clubbing can be one of the essential ECA’s in your CV. Follow your university club pages to find recruitment posts. Nowadays clubbing is also available in schools and colleges.
- Starting your own business: You can always start your own business. But it takes a lot of time, perseverance, and dedication. To begin, you will need a creative, strategic game plan as well as some investment to put it into action. Most big companies or startups are founded by university students. Everyone wants to be their own boss, but it takes a lot of work and dedication.
Apart from this, there are many extra activities that might help you acquire knowledge. Getting a right balance between your CGPA and ECA can be difficult. But a great CGPA can always land you a great job but remember extra curricular activities are equally essential these days. Extra curricular activities can be quite valuable on your resume and later in your job.
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Writer,
Mehrin Khan
Intern at Content Writing Department
YSSE