Some colleges require students to complete a certain number of hours of community service to graduate. What do you think of this practice? Shouldn’t colleges be focused more on getting students to graduate on time not adding more requirements. The best thing a college can do for the community is to educate their students in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Then provide students with support in finding a job or getting into grad school. Focus on providing a great experience in the classroom. Keep their loans to a minimum. This would be a real gift to the community. Adding another requirement for overworked undergraduates is unwise and counterproductive.
Do colleges have an ulterior motive for doing this? Is it actually an abuse of power? Does this naïve do-gooder approach to education have marketing appeal for colleges? Is it a publicity stunt? Does it distract attention from their failures in pursuing their primary mission? How many of their students get jobs in their chosen fields?
Optional community service might be alright if student safety can be assured and if there is no college credit involved. Community service would not be an ethical use of tuition dollars. Students might like it because they can earn credit without working hard but it would be a waste of parents’ money.
Why not institute an internship program instead or expand an existing internship program. This would be much more consistent with the mission of the university. At a Christian college, parents might expect a push for community service.
Is it legal for colleges to require community service? What if a student is a “conscientious objector” to community service? How are the rights of that student protected?
Students will be in a much better position to give back to the community once they graduate and get a good job.
Sorry if I sound cynical. I am trying to see things realistically. Having a halo to wear in the unemployment line will be of little consolation to college grads. How about career education first, community service later? Will the unemployed and underemployed be interested in volunteerism?
If the colleges in question are a small number of specialty (particularly private) colleges, then it is not exactly a concern for many students, who can simply choose a different college if such a requirement is undesirable to them. Other requirements can be viewed similarly.
Service often is more educational for the person performing it than the recipient. That’s why it’s called service learning. Or just transformational.
Oddly enough, I know people who found their “path” through this kind of experience. If you’re being asked to do this, try to be open to whatever may come out of it. You may be surprised!
Adding to the choir of “if you don’t like it, don’t apply” crowd. Volunteering/community service is a wonderful thing- for both the giver and the recipient. Let’s hope you are never in the situation where you need to rely on the kindness of strangers. Better hope they don’t have an equally selfish attitude.
I have no idea if this is a valid concern, but my first thought is that the community would be inundated with volunteers who didn’t really care and were just trying to fulfill the requirement. If you have no skills and no desire to learn, you’re probably more of a liability than a help to the organization.
Maybe an uncaring person unwilling or uninterested in giving of their time should instead be required to make a $500+ donation to a non profit organization.
They are probably uncaring, unwilling, and/or uninterested because they have to work many hours every week to pay for school and possibly support their families. If we’re putting a tax on apathy, there are more fitting populations to tap than broke college students.
Completely disagree with that theory, @halcyonheather . If they were needing to work many hours every week to cover personal or family expenses, they’d most likely completely understand the need for support and hard work. Often those who volunteer and pay it forward are those who have been there, or are there, and understand and appreciate the kindness of others. Not the selfish, entitled jerks who think they can’t be bothered.
Thanks for your perspectives. Prospective students and their parents should be made aware of the requirement for community service and it behooves prospective students to inquire about it. How many students don’t know about the requirement? Question: If it is required, how can it be “volunteering”. It is like requiring prisoners to clean trash from the roadside. Community service is different from requiring a physics major to take an art class because community service is not a recognized academic discipline. It is akin to imposing the religious/moral beliefs of a few administrators on a diverse freshman class. If a college wants to promote good citizenship, do it in the classroom and through optional on-campus service organizations. Good citizens should be taught to learn, understand, think critically, form opinions, and make independent informed decisions. In the classroom, faculty should present various points of view and not try to impose their values on impressionable 18-year-olds.
I agree that colleges are not merely trade schools. They have a broader mission to prepare students for life. The question is “What is the best way to prepare students for life?”. It is the problem of how do you allocate limited resources of time and effort to best accomplish your goals. Time spent painting someone’s fence or collecting clothes for the homeless, however noble, is time not spent studying. Colleges should focus on getting students to study and learn.There enough distractions from that already.
Well, I guess it’s more that I have two separate concerns about a college implementing community service as a graduation requirement:
Some students don't care about volunteering, and their volunteering would not be helpful.
Some students would have logistical difficulties with volunteering because they need to be at work or have family obligations (even if they do care about the causes).
Who is left? Probably the students who volunteer when it’s not a requirement.
Northeastern University requires major merit award recipients to do 60-100 hours of community service per year. If they do not want to do it they are welcome to continue their studies there----without the merit scholarship.
Most schools that have a public service requirement do nor have a burdensome # of hours, and take the issues of logistics and transportation and such into consideration. Those who cannot give up a few hours of their time to give to others should take a good hard look in the mirror.
I totally disagree. I think some of the most valuable lessons learned in college are learned out of the classroom. Studying is important. But so is interaction with other people, including the broader community that you’re living in.
I’m not a big fan of “compulsory volunteering.” But of all the things to get one’s knickers in a bunch about, this one strikes me as inconsequential. Spending a few hours…even a few days…even a few weeks over the course of four years giving back to the community is not going to distract a committed student or stand in the way of finding a job. Honestly, as an employer, I don’t want to hire someone who is so self-centered that they view being asked to get involved with community service as something that infringes on their “rights.”
Service learning classes are different than having a general requirement for volunteering. With a service learning class, you actually use the skills you are learning in the class to benefit the community in some way.
For example, students in a marketing class might design an ad campaign for a nonprofit. They wouldn’t necessarily be spending any more time than they would otherwise–it’s a class assignment. It just happens to benefit the nonprofit in addition to allowing the student to practice skills learned in class.
When I volunteer, I often feel like I’m doing more harm than good because I’m given work that requires skills I don’t have and they act like it’s enough for me to just be present and try my best.
I typically volunteer as a math tutor because I’m a math major and I care about math education. I work as a peer tutor (paid) at my school, and I’m successful with that because the students who come to me have already received pretty good educations. They basically know what they’re doing, and they just need me to clarify a couple of concepts or work through some examples.
Tutoring inner-city kids (I’ve done it for pay, but I’m talking about volunteering here) is different. For example, I was once tasked with helping a kid who was taking Algebra II even though he didn’t understand fractions or the multiplication table, and there was very little I could do given the time and pedagogical knowledge I had. Since the organization didn’t pay me, they weren’t very concerned about making sure I was able to do a good job. I feel that required volunteering, at least without some infrastructure to prepare students and help them find opportunities related to their majors, is a further promotion of the idea that community service = unskilled work. I think service learning classes are a good idea because they carry academic credit and acknowledge that service requires advance learning on the part of the volunteer.