Before you join any honors society, we fully believe you should do your research and ensure that the benefits the society offers are worthwhile. At NSCS, we could simply stand here and tell you the benefits of joining are worth it — but we know that you want to know a little more than that. You deserve to know more than that!
One way to look at the benefits of NSCS membership is to divide them into two levels. On one level, you have the key benefits that every member has access to. On another level, you have benefits that are more personal to your own experience and needs.
High-Level Benefits — and Beyond
On a high level, the key benefit of NSCS membership is that it gives you access. You gain access to scholarships that are only available to our members. You also gain access to lists of outside scholarships that would otherwise be hard to find. Our members are offered unique internship opportunities, leadership opportunities, and networking experiences. But if you dig a little deeper than this, you’ll start to realize that the benefits of NSCS are really personal.
Here’s what we mean by that. Depending on your needs and your interests, you can use NSCS membership in the ways that suit you best. You can pick and choose how you participate and what programs you interact with in order to round out and complete your own college experience in the ways you desire.
Personalizing Your Benefits
So, how do you go about personalizing the benefits of your NSCS membership? You can start by looking at the key areas in which you, personally, need to improve. Perhaps you’ve always performed well academically, but you don’t have a lot of leadership experience or feel comfortable leading. Then, you can focus on the leadership opportunities available to NSCS members to ensure that by the time you graduate, you do feel confident as a leader.
Leanna Crafford a student at University of Alabama at Birmingham, is one NSCS member who really used the NSCS leadership opportunities to her advantage. When asked about her experience, she stated,
“Without NSCS I would probably still be that shy high school girl who didn’t have the courage to stand in front of a room and lead.”
If, like Leanna, you don’t feel confident in front of a room, you may benefit from pursuing a leadership role in your school’s NSCS chapter. With others around to support you, this is a great opportunity to hone your leadership skills and confidence in a welcoming and learning-based setting.
Some other students benefit from using NSCS to gain additional experience in their desired career field. Rachel Layrisson of Florida State University is one student who capitalized on her membership in this way. She said,
“Because of NSCS I have participated in multiple political campaign internships that I would not have been available to me if I had not been a part of this organization.”
If you hope to one day have a career in politics, then there is no better way to gain experience than to work on a political campaign. That is an opportunity that NSCS was able to provide Rachel with. We can connect students with similar internships in other fields, which really benefits them when it comes time to search for a job.
Instead of asking “what are the benefits of NSCS membership,” perhaps a better question would be “How can I best use my NSCS membership to my benefit?” Our society offers a wide range of opportunities, and we love to see students benefit from them in such unique and individual ways.
