Being included on a Dean’s List is no small feat. Including this special recognition on your resume signals to the world that you achieve high, that you would be an invaluable, conscientious addition to their organisation and adds an honor to your resume that is scarce by its nature. In certain cases, it can compensate for a lack of professional experience elsewhere too.
It is often recommended that you write the Dean’s list next to the GPA or overall final score on your resume. This should be below the name and location of the current university you attend, together with the name of the degree and when you expect graduate (year). For example:
Higher education institution — Location by city and if necessary, state or province
Degree title (including minors)
Year of graduation
GPA, Dean’s List for [?] semesters
How do I list ‘summa cum laude’ on my resume?
So, you’ve landed yourself a summa cum laude honor (meaningwith the highest distinction). Pat yourself on the back and ponder about the best way to present it on your resume.
The “Honors” section, which is so common to North American higher education (though still operates in a very similar way to the older, original universities found in Europe and North Africa), will ideally list awards or distinctions you received, such as Dean’s List, cum laude or Phi Beta Kappa. Because of their Latinate origin, magna, summa, and cum laude should be in italics with lower case letters. Magna and cum laude are often translated, though not with precise accuracy, as “with great distinction.” The former is usually considered a little bit better than cum laude, which usually translates “with distinction.” This is because Magna may be awarded to someone who has been awarded very good grades (or some alternative form of academic commendation), but not the most available.
The word “laude”, Latin in its origin, is often taken as “honor” or “praise,” – we can see it in words like “laudatory.”
It is worth saying that adding honors such as Dean’s List onto your resume may seem superfluous if you also graduated with these Greco-Latin honors.
How do I put the expected graduation date on my resume?
Are you still studying?
When sending off your resume for jobs it is often thought of as a sign of thoughtful practice to hiring managers and employers, not to mention clarity, to mention your expected graduation date.
An expected graduation date tells a hopefully very eager (for you) labor market your progress with your qualification. It can also help prospective employers estimate the degree of working flexibility you may need for your current and ongoing schedule. You should be prepared to mention the days you are on campus, attending lectures or dedicating to study and writing essays in a covering statement.
For a clear and non-pretentious way of doing things it is possible to just write the name of the degree course followed by the expected month and year of graduation in brackets. For example, “Bachelor of Arts in History (graduation expected June 2022).”
The institution and its location should be made clear in writing just beneath the degree course and anticipated graduation date. Beneath, it is worth adding grade point average, especially if it is a respectable 3.0 or above.
Another student could take another familiar way of doing things and write an anticipated graduation date as follows: “X University: B.S. candidate in Chemistry, GPA 3.7, expected to graduate in June 2022.”
Most people will either write the date of their summer or winter graduation ceremonies — June or January.
How do I put my fraternity on a resume?
Popular culture hasn’t exactly given fraternities and sororities the patina of respectability with the imagery of pranking, drinking, or partying coming to mind. However, being a member does not include immediate harm to one’s future professional opportunities.
In fact, not every fraternity group is overly social in the sense of parties. Fraternities and sororities all across North America offer participation in seminars, opportunities to affiliate and network with professionals, workshops, and opportunities for relatedness to get careers started.
For this reason, mentioning professional activities associated with, or organised by your, sorority or fraternity member in your resume is not only passable, but it is also worthwhile. It shouldn’t be mentioned as an afterthought. Here is some tried and tested advice to make its inclusion stand out.
Mentioning Fraternity in Professional Experience
There are a couple of examples where mentioning prior experience in fraternities or sororities could help you stand out in a crowded pile of potential job candidates:
- You are without professional experiences to impress others with your resume
- You had a number of experiences to justify 4 to 5 bullet points, especially those that show off professionally recognised achievements, where you had the experience to develop hard, marketable specialized skills as well as ‘soft’ skills such as building those much needed and much-discussed excellent communication and communication capabilities.
This second option allows you to expand about your time and it is one of the better means of communicating how the experience helped you become one of the more viable and impressive people for the job.
Putting fraternity or sorority experience into the Volunteering portion of your resume
Showing off your experience, or any kind of relation with these societies, without devoting too much of your resume to fraternity experience can be done by placing it in the volunteering or activities section. It would be best if this was done only if you did not occupy any positions in your society or alternatively, and more importantly if you would like hiring managers to give less attention to your fraternity or sorority life and more towards your professional experience.
Consider adding sorority experience into your resume; you don’t have to add an entire section to it. Rather, make sure that what is mentioned is relevant to the candidate criteria document in the job applying for — sorted.