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Students attending a university find many new activities to participate in and organizations to get involved with.  For some students, just participating and enjoying the camaraderie is enough, but for those who want to take the bull by the horns and act as leaders or managers, there is no better place to start than in college.  Getting experience as a leader not only looks good on a resume, but also helps you to understand what types of decisions to make in order to better at communicating and motivating others. 

Join

It may seem obvious, but the first step to becoming a leader is to join into a student organization.  Students going to college tend to be inundated with requests to join everything from fraternities to clubs to frisbee teams to debate.  Choose which one or ones you want to join based on several criteria.  Most important, of course, is how much you think you would enjoy the group, but also whether or not it has an active community with strong participation.  Ask recruiters about their current leaders, and if possible talk directly with team captains or club presidents. 

Organizational Hierarchies

Whether you join a chess club or whether you find yourself getting a spot on the football team, spend your first few weeks in an organization determining how the social structure works.  Every group has some sort of leader and many have a pecking order, even if it is a fairly loose one.  Once you have an idea of the hierarchy of a group, play to your strengths.  If you are passionate about a particular idea, whether it is having a school debate or taking a road trip, talk it up.  Do not try to be an expert, and do not try to take the spotlight.  Help empower others if they have ideas they would like to see come to fruition.  Get as many people involved as you can, while doing your best to minimize conflicts.

In Classrooms

While it may be difficult to stand out in a lecture hall of two hundred students, smaller classes allow students to take charge of coursework and group projects.  You do not necessarily need to volunteer to be the one “in charge”, but ensure that everyone is kept up to date on their requirements, send out emails or texts when needed, and arrange for meetings at the library to make sure everyone is on the same page.  Suggest to classmates who share your interests to join the groups or organizations you belong to. 

Jobs and Work

Seventy percent of students in college work a part- or full-time job, with another twenty percent clocking at least forty hours per week on top of their studies.  Think about whether you would like to develop leadership skills by getting a job, and see if you can find one closely related to your major.  For example, science majors can attempt to find lab work, social studies majors can work in museums, and business students can take on the entrepreneur model and try to sell products to their fellow classmates.  Once you have a job, take note of the managers you consider effective and less than effective, and do your best to imitate the positive traits while eliminating the negative traits in your own work.  Don’t act like a manager to other workers, but instead encourage them to work harder (one surefire way to get fellow workers to work harder is to say that everyone should get done and clock out early).  Remember never to work to the point where your grades suffer, since your development as a leader must come second to your education.

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Author Bio

Ryan Ayers is a writer who creates informative articles in relation to education. In this article, he offers leadership tips to students and aims to encourage further study with a Norwich University Master of Organizational Leadership.