What to Look for When Joining Organizations
- Kiara Pfister
- Aug 17, 2024
- 2 min read
Written by: Kiara Pfister
Position, Member Since: Membership Enrichment Director, Joined Fall 2022
Major & Track: Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, Pre-Med
Current Year: 2nd Year
When I started off freshman year, my thought process was that I
needed to join all of the prehealth clubs that were available at UF so that I
could be the best candidate possible. I automatically joined about four to five
prehealth related clubs and marked down all of the GBMs in my planner.
However, I quickly became burnt out after going to all of the various club
meetings every other week from hearing about every other person’s career
progression and the x amount of activities that they were doing to fulfil all of
their hours for shadowing, clinical, research, etc. Furthermore, I found the
culture in many of these organizations to be cliquey and revolving around
everyone’s individual accomplishments rather than promoting a collaborative
environment.
Therefore, when looking for potential organizations to join, I would
recommend limiting yourself to 1-2 which are directly related to prehealth.
Within these prehealth organizations, try to surround yourself with
supportive people who are keen on recommending resources or giving you
information on activites that have/have not worked for them in their
collegiate prehealth journeys so that you establish a network which you can
benefit from. If you believe that you could eventually reach a leadership
position, that is also a good factor to consider! Moreover, look to expand into
clubs that are not directly related to medicine, but rather your personal
interests. For me, this included joining a volleyball club team freshman fall so
that I could separate myself from the competitive culture of premed and
meet people on other paths as well.
Everyone has a unique path into a prehealth profession, so only pursue
extracurriculars that you actively enjoy being a member of. With that, not every
activity will be necessarily career oriented, which is actually beneficial in remaining
engaged and excited to be in a health profession.
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