Leadership roles essential for resume

Junior Amy Wanninger has been participating in extracurricular activities since high school. Currently, she is the Union Board director of Student Voice, a position in which she coordinates programs the organization brings to campus.\n"I fell in love with it and I wanted to become a more concrete part of it I guess," she said. \nLeadership roles and volunteering are important parts of a resume, said Jan Van Dyke, senior assistant director for career resources at IU's Career Development Center. He stresses this point to the students he advises. \n"I think it is very important that students have a choice between volunteering, an internship or leadership activity," he said. \nIf a student participates in one of these three activities, he or she is successfully filling a necessary requirement for his or her future employer, Van Dyke said. He said there are two types of volunteering -- career volunteering and community service volunteering. An example of career volunteering is a student volunteering in an emergency room because he or she wants to be a doctor. Community service volunteering is when a student works at a place like the Middle Way House or at a homeless shelter outside of one's career interest. \n"If you (only) have academics what else do you have to offer your employer?" Van Dyke said. \nJohn Fernandez, the mayor of Bloomington, said volunteering is not only important to the community, but to students as well.\n"It is helpful to our community when students engage in our civic life," he said. "Also, it is equally valuable for the students to get all intrinsic value of volunteerism."\nJunior Daniel Loomis, a Health, Physical Education and Recreation major, doesn't think volunteering is as important as others make it seem.\n"Your resume is all about the experiences you've had," he said. "It would help, but I think that on-the-job training would be better than volunteer work."\nWanninger said she will come away from her work at Union Board with a great experience.\n"I feel that I have gained out-of-the-classroom knowledge," Wanninger said. "For instance, when I interviewed for my internship this summer, I was able to use past experiences from the Union Board to convey my full capabilities to my future employer."\nVan Dyke said taking part in an internship might make students change their minds about their career choice. \n"I've had students who want to do marketing but after they did a marketing internship, they don't want to do that, and that's a good experience," he said.