Students blog

Everyone says to ‘push the boundaries’ and to ‘go big’ if you want to be successful, but what does that even mean? Your definition of what those mean is often completely different from someone else’s. How can you start to push your own boundaries and figuring out what works for you? Why even force yourself into something you don’t want to do to begin with? Who decides to go jump off a cliff if they’ve never even jumped off the diving board first?

The short answer is no one. I’m sure there are a lot of extremists out there, but for the average person it doesn’t happen. So, what if you want to get to the point where you can be the person jumping off the cliff?

Find your own cliff. When I say this, I don’t mean literally go find a cliff, but that you should find your own version of the hypothetical cliff. Start with the small things that might scare you or make you uncomfortable.

For me, the start was going out to do things by myself. For the longest time I have had this preconceived notion that if I want to go out and enjoy something, that I needed someone else to be with me. That it somehow didn’t count if I was by myself, or I had the voice in the back of my head telling me that I was strange or that everyone was looking at me for being alone even though I knew that it really didn’t matter.

So, I started small. I decided to go to the movies by myself. Easy enough? Then I went to a concert. Then hiking. Eventually I joined a sports team all by myself and traveled for competitions. After all that, I had the courage to move across the country by myself. Now I can’t wait for what I will do next, since I am no longer afraid of doing things alone, but none of that would’ve happened if I had stayed in my comfort zone.

How do you decide what your personal cliff is? I think it should follow two important rules:

1) It should make you nervous but not freaked out.

2) It should be something that you genuinely want to do.

Don’t go to the beach to push your boundaries if you hate the ocean, and don’t go hike a mountain if you’re deathly afraid of heights. Start with the small things that you feel uncertain about doing, like calling to place your dinner order instead of ordering online when you hate talking on the phone or asking your server for the extra sauce that they might not give you. By doing these smaller tasks, even if you stumble through it, you reinforce the idea that at the end, everything was okay, and then eventually you can start working towards bigger and bigger cliffs.

While this will vary person to person, I think in the end it’s about figuring out who you are and wanting to be a stronger, more confident version of yourself – and who doesn’t want that?

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Have you been feeling on the fence about joining extracurriculars at your university? Hopefully this blog can help shine some light! When I first started college, I was worried about not having the time for extracurriculars, but I want to share and reassure you that it is worth making time for extracurriculars.

Find Community

The biggest reason most people join clubs/teams is to find their community. One of the biggest obstacles when starting college is figuring out who you are and surrounding yourself with people with similar interests; getting involved makes this a lot easier. I also really want to point out that this is a great time to try new things! Don’t be afraid to try a new sport or club because most groups expect you to know nothing and will help you learn something new. This is especially true for athletic clubs- most people who play club or intramural sports have never played before and will have more experienced players to help teach you!

Professional Development

It is also important to understand the benefits of extracurricular activities to your professional development. I think a lot of students forget that employers want to see that you are more than your schooling because while it's great to be a 4.0 student there are still hundreds of thousands of other students with a 4.0; the best way to set yourself apart is to have something else that you care about. It is also important to know that it doesn’t have to be something that relates to your major or your future career. One of the highlights on my resume is that I play on and lead an ultimate frisbee team – which has absolutely nothing to do with engineering – but most interviewers point it out because it is something different than they normally see.

Interview Points

Outside of just having that extra highlight on your resume- extracurriculars are great to talk about in interviews. If you play sports- I can almost guarantee that you’ve seen or been a part of some safety issue (which is always a popular interview question). If you are a part of an academic or social club, you can focus on how much time it takes from your schedule and how you organize and balance your days. Even if it is only an hour of your day once a week, it shows that you are capable of having work-life balance which a lot of other students won’t have.

I really hope this helped if you were on the fence about joining any extracurriculars this year!

Do you have a compelling story or student success tips you’d like to see published on the Pearson Students blog?  If you are a college student and interested in writing for us – click here to pitch your idea and get started! 

Happy International Women in Engineering Day! In honor of the holiday, I wanted to share some insight into the good and the bad of being a woman in engineering, and my hopes for the future.

Being Alone at The Table

While being a woman in engineering has come a long way, there is still so much progress to be made. Out of countless interviews, I have only ever been interviewed by women twice. Out of countless company sponsored dinners, I have never been with more than two other women. In my coursework, I have been in many groups where I was the only woman.

I think it is important to acknowledge the difficulty of always feeling like the odd person out just because of your gender. The crazy part of it is that it has nothing to even do with your personality. I play sports, I grew up with two brothers, and I play video games, yet I always feel so separated from the guys sitting next to me.

When learning to use surveying equipment for the first time in a course, I had the same level of experience as the guys in my group, but every time I was the person designated to take notes or just observe instead of setting up the equipment. The saddest part was that I soon noticed that it wasn’t just me. In almost every group, being female pretty much just meant you ‘probably had the best handwriting’ or ‘probably made things look prettier’. Despite being on the same playing field, for some reason we were still left out.

The Brighter Future