How To Gain Leadership Experience In College or University
College is a great time to learn, make friends, and start figuring out what you’d like to do for the rest of your life. Extra curricular activities are also extremely important, both for making friends, and for being a great way to get leadership experience.
There are many ways to get leadership experience in college; being on the executive board for a school club or sport, serving on your student government, or even becoming a manager at your job. Leadership experience looks great on any resume and is a great conversation topic at interviews.
Here I am going to share some of my leadership experience, and give advice on how you can apply that to your own life.
Join A Club’s Leadership Board
In my junior year of college at Rutgers University, I noticed a few people were starting a club called “Rutgers Global Network”. The purpose of this club was for people who liked traveling and learning about other cultures to meet once a week and do activities based on different countries. We also had frequent trips and hosted events.
It was initially started by the study abroad department, but quickly branched off into a separate student organization. As the club was in the beginning stages I ran for Marketing Director and got to serve on the e-board for several years.
Serving on an executive board during college was a very rewarding experience; I got to advertise a club I was passionate about by making and hanging up flyers, and I even designed a poster for the student activity fair. Making the poster was especially rewarding because it was completely hand-drawn, and even years later when I went back to the involvement fair as a graduate student, I noticed the club was still using my design!
So, how can you get leadership experience? Running for e-board is a great way to get leadership experience, and it is pretty easy to do. First, you could run for board of a club you’re already in. This is easier in some ways because you don’t need to look for a new club or take time to start one. The con is that with an established organization there will often be more competition for board positions.
Unless your eye is on a specific role, I would run for a position with as little competition as possible; this makes it easier to get your foot in the door. If you are not already a senior, running for a smaller e-board position will help you get recognition so you can run for president, captain, or whatever the most sought out position is the next year. If you don’t decide to go for president of your organization, the other leadership roles still look great on your resume and are rewarding experiences.
Start Your Own Club
You could start your own club! Starting a club is pretty easy, at Rutgers you only needed ten people to express interest to begin the process of officiating a new club. Starting your own club is a great idea if you notice an extracurricular you’re interested in, but your school doesn’t offer, as it can enhance your college experience and make a lasting change to your university.
It is also an easier way to get leadership experience, because as the founding member it is almost guaranteed that you’d be in charge of the club; otherwise you wouldn’t be taking the time and energy to start the club. However, the con is that getting a new club running is definitely more work- it is worth it, but you need to petition for official club status by gaining interest, keeping new members interested, and decide exactly what the club will be for and how to run it, and you will basically be setting a precedent for the future of the organization and how it will run.
Being on any e-board is a time commitment, but with a new club it is more work because you’re starting from ground zero. New clubs generally start with a small number of members; if those members lose interest and quit this could easily be the end of your organization.
With established clubs there is plenty of interest already from word of mouth, so if a few members quit it would still be able to function, but with a new club, for it to be successful you need a high commitment rate to get it to take off beyond the interest meeting, and hopefully get it to the point that it will remain and be even more successful after you graduate.
Being on the e-board for a large established student organization or successfully starting your own club are both very impressive leadership experiences, but have different challenges: the former is about living up to and exceeding expectations, whereas the latter is about setting a precedent for the future of the organization.
Attend An Interest Meeting & Get Involved
Maybe you're not ready for a leadership role but would rather be a member for a semester or two before running for an elevated role. No worries! Simply go to an interest meeting for a club that someone else is trying to start and see how you can help out. This gives you the perks of starting a new organization without the initial stress of planning what the club should be, as a founding member you will still be working on setting a precedent and building up the club, but the initial founder would still be responsible for the logistical portion of the initial work.
The hardest part of this is that it is definitely harder to find out about new student clubs- when I joined Rutgers Global Network it was actually being started by an acquaintance of mine, so knowing people and keeping your eye out for opportunities will definitely help you here.
Final Words…
Now that you have read a few of the ways to get involved and simultaneously gain leadership experience, I hope you are ready to start on your journey. My most important advice is to stay true to yourself and your passions. To truly be successful you’ll need to be passionate about whichever club you run for e-board, so whether that’s in an existing club or organization, or starting a new one that aligns even better with your interests, there’s something out there for everyone. Oh, and be confident, as long as you put yourself out there you will get the opportunity, and if you can’t find an opportunity, create one!
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Meet The Writer!
Hello my name’s Whitney! I’m a professional and creative writer ( blogging, news, screenplays, etc.). I graduated with degrees in Political Science and Global Studies. My areas of focus are non-profits and human rights, but I love to write and help people in any way possible! I encourage you to check out my writing and connect with me on LinkedIn.
