Over the past decade, as the job market has become more competitive - volunteering has become a way to show superiority when it comes to applying for positions in the work force. This influential change has encouraged high school and college level students to participate more in extracurricular activities. Most large corporations and firms are now looking to hire those individuals with outstanding GPAs, strong work ethic, and dedication of time and effort to other activities apart from their academic studies. Colleges such as Liberty University mandate that their students complete twenty hours of Christian service per semester.
For most, not all college students have time to volunteer to do community hours because they have jobs to attend or families to take
In “Serve or Fail,” Dave Eggers dissatisfies the phenomenon that although college students have too much leisure, they are not willing to give a few hours doing community services. Eggers suggests that colleges should consider instituting a service requirement for graduation, and colleges are best-poised to create in their students a lifelong commitment to volunteering. He pointed out that there are even programs done by colleges and high schools in order to gain more than two million volunteer hours a year. Owning a lot of time, Being mature and able to handle wide range of tasks, and receiving the opportunity to discover a potential career, make Eggers believes that college students are uniquely suited to do volunteer work. Eggers admits
“Volunteering could help colleges bridge the gap between the academic world and the world beyond it” says Eggers. Volunteering could be done at many venues and by volunteering at work places or in a field they prefer to, students can get to know that field better. Acquiring that perspective will connect the students to that field of work allowing them to gain experience.
The United States, as some can say, is a country known to be a hand in help. Although, they are a help by choice not mandatorly. In the United States there is a great amount of volunteers for many volunteering programs. The amount of volunteers increase through the years for different causes. There are volunteers for schools, churches, sport clubs, and even more. Not only do Americans volunteer but also make donations. Americans do this sincerely from heart, not because it's a law.
Volunteerism is dropping for emergency responders, and it is affecting how emergency services can be provided to local communities. Looking for reasons why volunteerism is dropping and what options are available for these volunteer companies and communities in order for them to effectively continue protecting the people and property within their communities is very important to me. If local fire companies no longer exist, how are people in the community going to be protected? In addition to fire suppression, firefighters are called on to assist with numerous other situations including auto accidents, downed wires, flooding, emergency medical service, hazmat incidents, and various rescue operations. There is simply not enough money to fund career fire departments for every community. Even in the
Markets are not the best way to achieve a just society. They often allow the wealthy to have more freedoms and greater opportunities.
I would like to continue doing volunteering work for 2 main reasons - career related and social responsibility. After I have graduated from college, I might be studying for higher degree or step in my dream, which is to be a social worker. There is always a shadow in my heart, a dark history of being bullied, the first person that I had in contact with and saved me from despair is a social worker. I hope to counsel others like I was reached, to bring brightness to their lives once again. The second reason is that I use to believe that as I belong to the society, I should always do something for a better future. We have the right to take recourses from this society and I should bear the responsibility at the same time for one should not only
Having to plan throughout the years of High School when and how you are going to get community service hours in can be very stressful in many ways. High School is when people really start buckling down and making sure to get everything done, from homework to studying for big tests. Being forced to do the extra three hours or so of work everyday could build a great deal of stress for students by taking away the time to do those things. It could also cut into the time to ready for the upcoming sports that many students take part in.
Discussing about volunteering to teenagers should be the first step for a better life, since teenagers are the future of tomorrow and they will leave a mark from yesterday. Volunteering has been such an important matter, that schools in many countries around the world established that 12th grade students will need certain hours of community service in order to graduate. But the frequent answers all the schools are getting are “Why do I need to volunteer? I have better things to do!” What people are forgetting is that each one of them is part of a community, a community that is not perfect and that the government sometimes forgets about their problems or needs, because obviously the government needs to take care of other things that require more attention. People are not only helping others, they are also helping themselves (Volunteering).
Always having loved volunteering, I have pretty done so to an extent over the years. From days of volunteering for medical missions with Pro-Health International to working as an AdHoc volunteer Doctor with Doctors without Borders on emergency response to the measles and meningitis epidemics in northern Nigeria and up until recently volunteering at a local hospital (Union Hospital) in Lynn, Massachusetts. Nevertheless, a strong desire to ameliorate health conditions among humanity strengthened this love and influenced my choice of education and career paths. Having studied Human Medicine (medicine and surgery) at the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria, I am a trained physician who also holds a Master of Science degree in International Health Policy and
Older students are more and likely to volunteer than younger students ( “volunteering”). Younger students want to spend more time on playing video games , hanging out with friends and doing what they prefer to do so volunteering doesn’t seem to come to mind. Teens of the ages 16 to 19, are more and likely to volunteer than other age groups of the age of 35 (“volunteering”). A little over a third of High School seniors volunteer at least once a month. Among all the Tenth Graders, the percentages and patterns was similar with the Twelfth Graders. In the Year of 1991 the percentage of Twelfth Graders who volunteered increased to 24%. (“Volunteering”). As many years came the percentage of Twelfth graders who volunteered increased. In the year of 2001 the percentages of Twelfth Graders who volunteered increased to 35% and stayed steady until 2010 ( “volunteering”). Between the years of 2010 and 2014, volunteering among both tenth and twelfth graders increased(“Trends”). Based on these statistics, it is clear that individuals should put in more time in volunteering because it helps a lot with the elderly and community.
Volunteerism enables students to gain the moral lesson that is vital to their life and develop their future interest. According to source 2, “community service teaches us through experience - about the relationship between empathy and responsibility, about what it takes to be part of a community, in essence, about human being”. While students are helping their community, they learn the crucial moral lessons in the most direct and impressive way. Through an actual experience of volunteering, students are reminded that it is their responsibility to serve for their community because they are a part of it. Helping without any feedback allows them to realize the power of empathy, the essential value that makes the society a
In my five years of active volunteer work with multiple non-profit organizations, I have seen firsthand the lack of attendance of my peers in times of great community need and support from its members. Although it has become more complicated to find time to give back to the community, with a full-time school and work schedule, there is always spare time to give back. The rapidly growing demand for volunteers in communities all across America is increasing and it is everyone’s duty, especially college students, to pay their dues to the
Before explaining the concepts of liminality and Othering and their connection to volunteerism, I will first explain how volunteerism is scientifically defined and approached. The term volunteerism is a coalescence from the words volunteering and tourism. Stebbins and Graham (2004) define volunteerism as volunteering “in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve the aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research into aspects of society or environment (Stebbins and Graham 2004, 211). According to Beigbeder (1991) and Clark (1978), a volunteer is someone who voluntarily offers personal services, time and skills for the benefit of others. Stebbins and