Community Service & Schedule Rigorousness

Applying to College
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<p>Sorry but I couldn't find a forum this would fall under, and I don't see an Other/Miscellaneous forum so I apologize beforehand about this.</p>

<p>I wanted to ask what exactly determines if a job (paid or unpaid) qualifies as "community service"? I am guessing it is something you do that benefits the community, but...what kind of job doesn't do that? Every job I can think of benefits the community in some way, to some degree. I'm just wondering what guidelines there are, if any, that determines if it is. </p>

<p>My second question is regarding the busyness of one's schedule. When applying for a job after graduating, do employers factor in how busy your college semesters were, or does it not matter, for example, if one person took 20 semesters of 6 credits as opposed to taking 10 semesters of 12 credits. Reason I ask is, I consider being non full-time (while not working), and I just don’t want this to hurt me later on if employers consider how busy my semesters were and not simply how much work I’ve done. I hope they only care about how much has been done, and not how quickly it was done.</p>

<p>The reason pretty much that I'm not full-time is that it's so hard living with a family of 5 in a small house, and they're not just ordinary family members, but people (some of those 5) who make it hard to study and do well in general. I considered moving out to a dorm or apartment, but the cost on average is $10,000 a year and that's to dorm at my university. Apartmenting is higher. I'd have to get loans to pay back and all of this because some people here are a burden? I'd do that if said burdens (1-2, but one person is far greater of one, and the home-owner doesn't want to kick him out even though he's freaking 28 years old) would pay that money. Otherwise I would rather just be part-time and do well. </p>

<p>I'm perfectly fine with employers caring about your grades (like for an Information Systems major like me) but there would be a problem if they were trying to find out how many credits per semester I was taking, and they see that I've been taking 6-7 credit semesters as opposed to 12. I hope they don't typically do this, neither do I think they'll care about the above reasons if they check this. If they do, I'll see if my last few semesters can be done full-time when years later this house is hopefully less full of ruckuses, arguments and other crap. Studying elsewhere (like at a library) I've also tried before. Very inconvenient and lots of time is wasted (for several reasons) as opposed to just studying from the greatest location yet for me, which, unfortunately is my room in this house.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help and sorry again that I couldn't find the right forum for these...</p>

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<p>So your question is how do employers look at how you got yourself through school in regards to credits/semester? And your other question is what counts as community service?</p>

<p>1) It depends on what kind of job and what type of major. Most employers care that you are connected to your subject matter deeply in a way that shows passion. If you are able to get great grades and show that, it may not matter as much whether you took 14 credits a semester or 6, however, 4 years of a bachelor degree is a lot less time than 8 years of a bachelor. The risk is that you don’t have a way to pay for it and give up after 4-5 years, or that it becomes too challenging to juggle your situation and you give up before completing an actual degree.</p>

<p>2) Community service is volunteer work that is non-paid and that benefits the community. The number of hours is not as important as the intent and the value of the service. If you volunteered 5-10 hours a week over the summer as a volunteer at the hospital and you eventually were asked to train other volunteers or started a program to recruit more volunteers, that is more important that just showing up and getting 5-10 hours on the clock.</p>

<p>It sounds like finances may be a problem for you if you are worried about dorm expenses. In reality, the best way to survive college without distractions is to be 100% committed, and one way to do that is to live in the environment that supports this focus, which is the dorm with all the study benefits nearby. If you can apply for financial aid, you should definitely look into this. If you have great grades and other hooks (minority, first one in your family to attend college, amazing athlete, etc.) then you may find that there are possible scholarships in addition to the financial aid that make paying for college a little easier, including room and board.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your reply.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I would be glad if they just cared about grades and not how many semester credits/work hours I had. In fact, a transcript (if and when they ask for it) doesn’t even highlight how long it took one to graduate so I think I’m good there. Who knows though, but whatever. Hopefully my work experience so far and future possible internships makes up for that. What do you mean “risk is that you don’t have a way to pay for it”? Do you mean like the fact I was part-time in the past can’t be undone?</p></li>
<li><p>Ok, so what about a non-paid internship? Like I said, I don’t know what kind of volunteer work out there that doesn’t consist of helping out. Must it help out at least a minimum number of people for it to be considering community service?</p></li>
<li><p>It’s not that it can’t be afforded, but my mother would still be bombarded with expenses especially since now she has to deal with paying off my 28-year-old (oldest) brother’s $60,000 loans, since now he has decided to strictly stay home and watch TV all day instead of actually be what he’s supposed to with his earned degree - a pharmacist. Pretty sad actually when you look up a pharmacist’s salary. And yeah, she won’t kick him out. She thinks he’s “sick” but the fact of the matter is he thinks because he is many negative things (that a typical person with low self-esteem would think he/she is), he doesn’t have to do jack in life (neither was he diagnosed with anything severe when she took him to the hospital several times before), but he was given some medication to assist against his fear of germs…a medication he refuses to take since he thinks it’ll make him urinate on himself (LOL) despite that his inability to hold it worth a damn is very likely due to his complete and utter inactivity. The fact he’s still like this even though he’s taking no medication proves it. She (mother) despite being told all of the above refuses to take action know.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Not to mention I plan on getting aid from my mother when I hopefully move out to my permanent residence in the future, and that $20,000 dorm money would consist of it…I’d rather use that as downpayment towards a house then waste it on rent and utilities. Yeah, it’s really all that big baby’s fault, plus partially my father but he doesn’t compare really.</p>

<p>Plus I apply for federal student aid. In fact I submitted my FAFSA yesterday, and currently based on my parents’ income I don’t really get any aid (very rare that I would at this point) since they together make around 80 grand a year, and I don’t know if Arab (which I am) would be considered a minority since apparently under many applications, that falls under the category WHITE (and there is no “Arab” category) and as far as being an athlete, that’s a no. I was a varsity cross country runner in high school, but those days are over (not to mention was in high school…) and as far as “great” grades…what is the minimum GPA for that? I get around 3.0 nowadays. Two semesters ago I got a 4.0 (first time in my life) but right now I’m roughly a B student, and something tells me in order to get a scholarship for grades…the minimum GPA would probably need to be around 3.5, which I don’t have (nor think I will get). Besides, I’m almost positive those scholarships will require you to be full-time which I don’t plan on being either.</p>

<p>I think I’ll be fine for the most part. I probably just need to find something that’ll make up for the “part-time” semesters (supposing it’ll even be a problem). Doing internships is one thing I’m sure would make up for that alone, then there is/will be other stuff like good grades and etc.</p>

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<p>I meant “take action though” at the end of the third paragraph. The edit time has expired.</p>

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<p>Um…response?</p>

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<p>Hi Meteora, in terms of community service, I’m not sure what you question still is … why do you care about community service? If you are majoring in information systems then an internship or co-op job is what you want, not community service. Also, in terms of credits to graduate … if you can only afford to take 6-7 credits a semester, employers may understand that, but if you are getting financial aid, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be full time? If employers have a choice, they want someone that is really good at what they do, that has experience, and that will work well as a team. Sometimes they do prefer the typical 4-year grad because they are young enough to assimilate into the working environment without be stuck in their ways so you don’t want to stretch out your undergrad so long that you are not young and agile once you graduate.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your response again. I don’t plan on not being young when I graduate. I can without a doubt gaurantee that I’ll be 28 or younger when I’m done, but I’m just not seeing myself doing C or higher level while taking more than 6 credits considering how my life just is. I know it won’t go lower though. I even imagine in my latter semesters I’ll be taking 3 classes (I did so last semester and got a 3.3 GPA, and in the semester before that, I was taking 12 credits and got a 4.0 GPA literally! Though I admit they were intro-level classes that semester lol. Either way, I pained like hell though, and I honestly don’t want EVERY semester to be like this…).</p>

<p>…And I asked about the community service since, for example, some scholarships require that and I wanted to know if what I did was community service or not. Anyway after some research a month or so ago, apparently what I did wasn’t. It would be had it been non-paid, but “since it was paid”, it’s not community service. It should be then be more called “volunteer work”, “non-paid service” or something of the type. Community service = service to the community, paid or not. :/</p>

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<p>Well, sometimes you just do what you have to do to get through. I would concentrate any free time on a paying job versus community service at this point. If your community service is not part of who you are, you are not likely to get that particular scholarship anyway, so it would be a waste of time to pretend that you are into community service only for the possibility of a scholarship.</p>

<p>p.s. I would encourage you to tidy up the words you use if your are talking to someone about internships or professional assignments. The “f” word you used may sound okay to you at this age, and maybe in high school, but it unbecoming and unprofessional in most other situations.</p>

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<p>Snowflake, this is a messaging forum. No one knows my identity here and of course I wouldn’t even consider saying the slightest SLANG even in a professional environment that I’m hoping to become successful through. :)</p>

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<p>^ Anonymous or not, CC does not allow inappropriate language as clearly stated in the Terms of Service agreed to when you joined.</p>