With the advent of email, texting and video chatting, snail mail has become a virtually obsolete experience at college – especially when you’re an international student like myself (though I don’t consider Canada to be very exotic). I mostly get flyers in my little Boston University mailbox, but one day during my freshman year, I pulled out a large, impressive looking envelope. Naturally, my interest was piqued. It turned out to be a letter from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) with my nomination to be a part of the honor society.
My excitement over mail was quickly replaced by the excitement over the fancy letter. An honor society seemed like the quintessential college experience and I quickly joined, tweaked my resume, saved the document, and thought that was that. I thought getting into college was involved, and stressful, and challenging – but I also thought it would be the final destination. Nope.
There are internships and graduate school… a thousand steps between my now junior status at BU and my dream career as a pediatric psychologist for chronically ill children. The first week of being at college, I had narrowed down my top choices for grad school and began working toward the next goal.
But hold up – you’re probably thinking I’m a little hyperactive when it comes to the future. And yes, that would be accurate, but it seems as though it’s increasingly true that you have to be overqualified to be average – everyone applying to the best programs will have a great GPA, be in an honor society, volunteer, and so on and so forth. But resume-building and self-building are two very different things: let me explain, resume-building is like being a really good looking person, you may have all of the latest clothes, but not much on the inside. Self-building is like being a really good person, you may have way too many plaid shirts, but you are much more interesting and deserving than the really good looking person.
I thought being in NSCS was just that, being ‘in’ it. But really, it’s being ‘involved’ with it. I love contributing to our blog and feeling involved in a passionate community of young, driven academics across the country. It’s an opportunity to met like-minded people who want to help me succeed, and likewise, I want to see them succeed.
Here’s what anyone can tell you – being in an honor society will look great on a resume. But so what? A resume doesn’t do a good job of summing you up as a person or as an academic. Give yourself every opportunity to grow, to ‘self-build’ if you will, and being involved with NSCS has been a part of that journey for myself.
So go ahead and self-build, there’s no limit to how far you can take yourself.
