Why You Should Join Learning Communities?
Some believe the smartest thing to do at medical school is to put your head down and do nothing but study 24/7 in the hope of consistently hitting that top decile. But for many people, it’s not. Hear me out…
The experiences, connections, and other benefits you can get from extracurriculars could be invaluable in your future – as well as in the present.
In this blog post, I’m going to give 6 reasons why you should join at least one club or society while at medical school.
Why You Should Join Learning Communities:
1. Develop Your Skills
One problem we face as medical students is that we’re given many opportunities to improve our medical knowledge, and clinical and communication skills. All essential for being a doctor, of course. Yet we rarely get opportunities to hone other skills such as leadership, organizing events, managing budgets, entrepreneurship, and more. All these additional skills could help us stand out from other candidates when applying for jobs later on.
To give an example, I was recently successful in applying for a paid sports medicine internship for medical students. Little did I know that the doctors interviewing me would be interested in my blog and ask about my web design skills. It’s possible this helped me stand out.
2. Discover Your Passions
If you join clubs and societies that you’re naturally drawn to, this could help you discover and reinforce your true passions.
Once you know what your passions are, you can shape your life and career around them. Some say, making time to enjoy your desires can make you happier and more fulfilled.
It could be as straightforward as discovering, you love emergency medicine through attending talks, conferences, and shadowing opportunities organized by your universities’ emergency medicine society.
Alternatively, it may be not so straightforward… you may find that you have a huge passion for baking cakes after joining the baking society. You could shape your future medical career in a way that gives you time to bake as a hobby, even a side business
3. Boost Your CV
I’ve heard consultants of today say they had less on their CVs whilst in medical school than many medical students do now.
Clubs and societies offer opportunities to develop skills (e.g. fundraising, organizing events, leadership). You can use any projects or activities you partake in as evidence of having these skills in interviews and on your CV.
The activities you partake in are also evidence of your interests and enthusiasm. It makes far more of an impression to be able to say you co-organized a national undergraduate cardiology conference than to say you scored well in the same modules everyone else probably scored well in, and especially enjoyed your cardiology placements/rotations because, again, everyone else applying for the same post probably did too. RIGHT.
4. Make Friends & Memories
Whether you end up honing skills and discovering your passions or not, clubs and societies are a great way to find life-long friends and make memories.
Medical school can be challenging. It’s a little less hard when there are fun things to look forward to and you have good friends around you.
For example, sports clubs often organize trips abroad and creative/arts societies often do annual shows.
Quick tips if you’re shy but want to make new friends:
1. Look out for people with similar interests and humor to you. Go to places and events where these people are likely to be.
2. Sometimes make the first move and ask if they’d like to hang out (e.g. coffee, lunch, an event you think you’d both like).
3. Try not to take it to heart if others don’t reciprocate or you don’t make friends straight away. It takes a bit of luck to find people you click with
I’ve made most of my friends through my yoga gang in my adult life. Partly why I’m so biased toward joining clubs and societies!
5. Networking
Clubs and societies are a great chance to develop a network that could help you in your career later on. Not everybody you get to know needs to become the best buddy.
If you develop a reputation for being organized, a good team player or leader, or just being a decent person, when you meet these people again down the line, they may recommend you or give you advice they wouldn’t have done if you were a complete stranger. And vice versa.
6. Improve Your Health:
Besides the well-known mental well-being benefits of having something fun to do other than studying, and the chance to socialize with others, a range of clubs and societies could give the added benefit of improving your health in other ways.
For example, societies focused on yoga, meditation, and a good lifestyle may help you reduce stress and generally live a healthier lifestyle. Some college clubs offer regular chances to exercise and, especially if you’re competitive or want to make new friends, extra incentive because you know if you commit to training regularly, you’re more likely to win and form strong camaraderie with your teammates.
I hope the above information can help you develop a new passion, new skills, and new friends through communities that help you learn faster and grow faster.
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