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Work experience - volunteering - put in my application?

somethingbeautiful

delete.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 1

Jen19

always include it. i dont know if they keep records. but it is a good thing to include

Reply 2

Jessaay!

They generally don't check with the records of places I don't think. It'd be stupidly hard if they did. So feel free to put it on.

Reply 3

Pollypeptide

Don't be silly, of course you can put that down as valid voluntary work. Providing you gained skills from it (write about these in your PS) then you can talk about it at interview. That's the only way they can tell if your telling the truth, by seeing if you can discuss your placement! :biggrin:

Best of luck!

Reply 4

GodspeedGehenna

If you can relate it to your course and possibly talk about "what you learnt" then sure, if you have some spare lines.

If not, I wouldn't waste the space.

Reply 5

Juno

"A few Saturday afternoons" is not going to help your application at all. Either get proper voluntary work, or leave it out.

Reply 6

harmonyy.

Do I only put in the employment section, paid work experience?

Reply 7

Pollypeptide

Juno

"A few Saturday afternoons" is not going to help your application at all. Either get proper voluntary work, or leave it out.

Oh, do shut up! Your obviously ill-informed on the subject matter. It's not the quantity that the admissions tutors will be asking about, it's what you learnt from the experience.
To the OP, if it's your only work experience / voluntary based work then realy exploit it in your PS. You need to sell yourself by telling them how the skills gained from your voluntary work (which on it's own shows good citezenship) will help you succeed as a good doctor.

Reply 8

i'm no superman

Yeah go for it. Have you done something else showing a bit more commitment though? (Because that's always a plus to put in when writing your PS!)

Reply 9

History Rocks

Yes I agree Pollypeptide you need to put it in if is the only voluntary experience you have taken up!

Don't forget universities are looking for people who have more than academic traits to them and people who actually stand out from the rest doing things such as voluntary experience are going to have an edge over people who have not done voluntary work.

Reply 10

Kitty Pimms

Pollypeptide

Oh, do shut up! Your obviously ill-informed on the subject matter. It's not the quantity that the admissions tutors will be asking about, it's what you learnt from the experience.

First off, are you completely cuckoo telling Juno she's ill-informed?! :laugh:

Secondly, I agree with her. TBH it's unlikely the OP will have gained a lot from the experience if she's just worked the tills a few times. The real benefit from putting voluntary work down on the PS is to prove commitment and enthusiasm; and if it's specialist then by all means discuss the skills you've learnt. Tills unfortunately isn't specialist and doing it only a few times doesn't show commitment. I don't think it would be likely to significantly enhance the PS unless the OP was really short of other stuff to put down - then again if it's a college application, it's likely to be less competitive than university apps and so they may not be so picky and if the OP feels it's important to her then it's entirely her decision.

(FWIW, in my original UCAS appliciation I left off the six months' off and on Saturday stuff I'd done at a local vet's practice, as it wasn't really consistent or relevant. In my postgrad PS I did include the summer I spent working voluntarily four days a week for a specialist advisory agency, because I learnt loads and worked really hard).

Reply 11

Kitty Pimms

somethingbeautiful

Thanks, I understand what you're saying. Just to clear a couple of things up, I applied to uni last year (i've just left year 13) so I do understand the importance of the Personal Statement and work experience - I don't think I made that clear in my original post. I've done more than just the Oxfam work hehe I just wondered whether it was worth mentioning. I've worked in a hospital and for her majesty's court service (so a mixture of practical and office based) and I've got a whole load of extra currics to put in. I don't even know if I'll mention it in the PS - I might just put it in as a bullet point under 'work experience' - do you think that would be more appropriate?
Thanks for the help everyone :wink:

Brilliant, thanks for clearing that up :smile:

If it's just a bullet point on the application form itself, you might as well (provided you don't massively oversell it - you know, saying you were a shop manager or anything :wink:

). It sounds like you've got some really great work experience aside from that, though - so when it comes to writing the PS itself I really wouldn't bother wasting the space on that when you've got so much else to talk about.

Reply 12

Cirsium

Yep agree with Ilex - if you've got the room and want to put a single line in then it's fine, although I'd be surprised if you've got the space to warrant mentioning it. Good to hear you've got some decent WE though!