Class Leader Positions

[naivevetstudent]

Hello,

Anyone who has experienced it or knows someone who has experienced it, what are the pros and cons of pursuing a class leadership position?

I’m in my first year of veterinary school and they are holding elections soon. I’m very interested but I doubt I’ve talked to enough people to be considered, and even then I’m not entirely sure how involved I’d want to be or what’s realistic.

Couldn’t find anything here on the topic, only for med students. Any help would be great!

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[JaynaAli]

I think @WildZoo was a class officer? I’m sure others but she popped into my mind.

I didn’t pursue class office but one of my friends did. Honestly I don’t know that they did all that much aside from being a liaison between students and admin/faculty. From the outside looking in:

Pros: a decent leadership activity for your CV for specialty apps or if you plan to pursue practice leadership, might be low commitment depending upon the office
Cons: you have to listen to a lot of people complain to you about things you can only minimally change (or not change at all), you’re giving up your time for a position that might not have a lot of tangible/long term benefits career wise (for most people)

I personally chose to pursue leadership roles in clubs more directly associated with my field of choice and other interests in vet med.

 

[supershorty]

I held leadership roles in the vet school and in my university's professional student government, ranging from being a class representative (which is what Jayna described) to being president of the vet med student council to being the speaker of the house for the university-wide professional student government.

IMO it was great experience if you see yourself wanting to work in academia and deal with the bureaucracy of that during your career. I got to know the faculty really well and was able to push through some major changes to benefit the vet med student body in my larger roles. But that being said, it did severely limit my ability to participate in clubs that I would have liked to be a part of due to the time commitment that it was.

 

[WildZoo]

Like Jayna mentioned, I was a class officer/executive board member for all 4 years (though my responsibilities were almost non-existent during clinics). I was also on our SAVMA board and a couple club boards, though I eventually focused those down to the ones that were most relevant for my career goals. I think it can be enjoyable if you find a role that is a really good fit for you, I enjoyed my job most of the time. I got to know a lot of the faculty through my leadership roles, and helped make life a little better for my class as a whole, and hopefully for future classes. I liked being more part of the school community as a whole than I would have been if I'd just focused strictly on classes. I'm also someone that does better in life when I'm (moderately) busy so having a bunch of different things going on was good for me. I don't think most of our class executive board members found their jobs particularly difficult to maintain alongside schoolwork and such, but that's going to be a very individual thing.