Resume Builders: Why?

Something that has always puzzled me is the idea of students participating in extracurricular activities for the sole purpose of writing them on their resume in order to impress an admissions board of their choice. This idea has always bothered me, so I figured why not write about it in an attempt to question why this is the case. When I was in High School I had this one "friend" who said she was a member of all these great clubs, but with further investigation I realized that she never participated in any of the events for these clubs but rather used them to put on her resume in order to get into NYU. I thought this seemed a bit ridiculous but didn't think much of it because well I was just in High School.

However, when I came to the University of Michigan I realized that so many more people do that here. I could not believe it. I honestly thought that people chose to participate in activities that really interested them solely of the purpose of expanding their interest. When you think about the steep competition to get into graduate school it is understandable that students want to stand out and impress admissions boards. But yet, at the same time wouldn't it be better if someone participated in a club that honestly meant something to them and was extremely active in this club, rather than spreading themselves so thin that the people in the organizations do not even know who they are. I would hope that an admissions board would be more impressed if a student pursued what really interested them for their own individual sake.

For instance, I am almost fell into this loop hole upon entering this university. When I arrived and said that I wanted to be a doctor, I was advised to get involved in as many things possible in order to "boost" my resume. I immediately joined the pre-med club, because of course I thought that was what I was "supposed" to do if I wanted to go to medical school. However it was not very long before I realized that no one in the club knew me and I was not contributing anything of worth but sacrificing an hour I could be studying to listen to people tell me about what I should be doing to get into medical school. I decided that I wanted to be my own person, and that in the end hopefully a medical school will accept me as me, not a compilation of Hochschild's "false selves" created in an attempt to be the "perfect medical school applicant." Well actually what everyone perceives the medical schools think is the perfect applicant, because honestly how can anyone know for sure. This is actually an example of Mead's interaction self, because people try to act how they think other people want them to. Well in that respect I felt that a medical school would want me to be me, an individual pursuing her own interests and with the goal of wanting to help and care for people.

Of course, I still participate in as much as I can, but my list is probably nothing in comparison to other "resume builders," who probably do not even know what is on their resume, in addition to the fact that I just don't sign up for things for the pure sake of saying I "do" something else. I aim to do things that really mean something to me. I wonder why should we all devote our undergraduate years to making ourselves who we think an admissions board wants us to be. It just seems more reasonable to be ourselves and do things that we would do if their were no graduate schools or jobs to apply to. These ideas of the social self are adding pressure to us to conform and adapt, when we shouldn't have to. Don't you think?