In graduate school I have found that along with being a producer of good research, fellowships/post-doctoral advisers/faculty search committee are also often interested in what one has done outside of research (or teaching/TA-ing) as well. Examples of such activities include (but are not limited to) volunteering with younger students in science, organizing a journal club, mentoring undergraduate researchers, etc. In some cases, the importance of these activities is immense: for the NSF CAREER award, for example, having outreach is a substantial part of the application.
However, clearly, spending all of one's time on these activities is not the best idea, since then no research gets done.
So, my question is:
What is the optimal fraction/amount of time to spend on "outreach" activities like those mentioned above, which are explicitly not research or teaching activities, for someone looking to pursue a career at a research university?
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