I Don't Like Volunteering

Applying to College
21

<p>"For many kids, the volunteer work is not genuine and from the heart. "</p>

<p>This is true of many of the things that high school students do to get into college. For instance, there are many courses that students wouldn't bother to take and work hard in if those courses weren't required for college. </p>

<p>Just how many things do students or anyone else really do from the heart? One doesn't have to do something from the heart for one's actions to be valuable or for one to learn from the experience.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, when it comes to students at places like Ivies, most did do volunteer work when they were in high school, and they continue to do volunteer work in college even though their colleges don't require them to volunteer. Why? They genuinely like doing volunteer work. </p>

<p>Here's info about the main student-run volunteer organization at Harvard, Phillips Brooks House: "PBHA is a student-run public service organization at Harvard University. </p>

<p>Consisting of 72 program committees, over 1,800 student volunteers, and serving close to 10,000 constituents in the Cambridge and Boston area, PBHA is an organization dedicated to Social Service and Social Action. </p>

<p>As a student-run organization, we draw upon the creative initiative of students and community members to foster collaboration that empowers individuals and communities. Through social service and social action, PBHA endeavors to meet community needs and promote social awareness and community involvement at Harvard and beyond. "
<a href="http://www.pbha.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.pbha.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Do check out the link so you can see what so many Harvard students are doing because it's their idea of fun.</p>

<p>People who hate volunteer work and think its only for idiots aren't people who most top colleges want to admit. The top colleges think its important for their students and alum to be contributing to communities, and those colleges want to admit students who'll do exactly that.</p>

<p>Incidentally, alum interviewers are volunteers, and alums particularly at places like Ivies do lots of volunteer work for their colleges. Why? They appreciated their college educations (even though they may have also paid through the nose for it) and want to give back.</p>

<p>Harvard's class reunions, which are held every 5 years, are mainly organized by alum volunteers who do things like: conduct formal surveys of the entire class to find out what their lives are like; produce documentaries of the class; create and maintain class web pages, etc.</p>

22

<p>"I don't have a problem at all with people who don't want to volunteer, as long as they are the ones writing the donation checks."</p>

<p>LOL! Terrific comeback!</p>

23

<p>Volunteering is also a learning experience -- just like calculus or Ancient History. It is a chance for you to experience something outside of your current bubble -- and that is something that many don't like.</p>

<p>Volunteering can help those with sub-par people skills -- where else will you have the opportunity to interact with so many different people and practice improving those people skills in an environment where you aren't being judged or graded but rather are appreciated for your efforts?</p>

<p>My kids are probably the type that make you nauseous -- hundreds and hundreds of community service hours. They don't enjoy all of those hours -- some activities they only do once and decide it isn't for them. Other activites they don't like to do, but recognize the need and feel good about contributing. Other activities they truly enjoy -- sometimes they enjoy the other people they are working with, sometimes they really like the activity, sometimes they really like the people they are helping, and when they are really lucky -- it is all three of these.</p>

<p>I cannot tell you how much my kids have matured, broaden their perspectives and learned from these experiences -- even the ones that didn't turn out well. My favorite is a trail-building crew my oldest signed up for -- turns out that he was the only one of 18 teens who wasn't there because of court mandated community service. The work was back-breaking (hauling rocks), it was hot and dusty and the only people to talk to for 8 hours were kids who spent their time bragging about drug deals they had made and what they got away with at home, school and with the police. Needless to say, he didn't volunteer for that type of work with that organization again -- but he did learn that he didn't want to ever have to do mandated community service work!</p>

<p>I agree strongly with bobmallet -- a kids with sub-par people skills whose doesn't care about helping others isn't ivy league material -- they just have too many people to choose from.</p>

24

<p>its not that I feel selfish at all, infact I am probally one of the most generous people in my generation. I just see volunteering as a waste which helps too little. I'd rather spend that time instead getting into college, and then using the resources of my life to bring lasting change, instead of some stupid thing like ladeling soup which brings nothing special. </p>

<p>Real change for the good of humanity does not come from volunteering. I realized that a while ago, and I've devoted my life instead to truly seeking great aid for humanity. I'm not selfish at all, it's simply that I see things from a angle further distant that encompasses the whole situation instead. Who helps more you think? someone who spends 20 hours a week ladeling soup and then goes on somewhere to some college and then volunteers the rest of his life away, or someone who volunteers not a drop during high school, does everything else great, gets into a great college, gains riches and support, and then changes the world as one of the world's premier figures? </p>

<p>Volunteering is just the wrong way to help humanity.</p>

25

<p>


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<p>It is extremely idiotic to label all volunteer activities as "ladeling soup" at soup kitchens... That's kind of ignorant, but not surprising, from someone who hasn't volunteered a day in his life...</p>

26

<p>^ I volunteered just enough for NHS and am a officer in Key Club, but I know in reality these things are meaningless. Sorry for the above generalization though, but mabye you shouldn't be exploiting annoying debating skills when this is not a debate, but a discussion to seek the truth of the matter. As such, all debating skills are simply obstructive and you should not attack on small lines to try to discredit an entire argument. Those two lines you cited are the least important in the whole argument.</p>

<p>Unlike some ppl who seek to get into a good college my life is not dedicated to getting myself rich and getting this cult of a "lol gd job". If God suddenly prevented from changing the world but given $50,000,000,000 to enjoy myself and buy whatever i want, I'd proballly just jump off a cliff.</p>

27

<p>"I'd rather spend that time instead getting into college, and then using the resources of my life to bring lasting change, instead of some stupid thing like ladeling soup which brings nothing special."</p>

<p>One can get into college while doing things to bring lasting change.</p>

<p>Since you think that volunteering involves simply ladling soup, you're sadly mistaken.</p>

<p>In addition, many of not most of the people who are doing things to make lasting change have been and are volunteers. Lots of things they did and experienced as volunteers helped them figure out how to address problems on a professional and even a global level.</p>

<p>To be effective in bringing about change, one has to know more than there is in textbooks.</p>

<p>A quote to ponder: "To save one life, it is as if you had saved the world." Talmud</p>

28

<p>Hey everyone, sorry for overreacting a bit. When I get passionate about something I tend to make exaggerated statements and overgeneralizations, which is what I first felt when I saw people worshipping volunteering as the 'sole' way to express your humanity and love to help others.</p>

<p>Personally I do volunteer occasionally when I feel it's a genuine way of helping those who may not be around or affected when I try to help the world later on, but generally in things such as Key Club I never participate in many of the items because they are usually simple things such as simply "raising money", of which only like 1% of proceeds go to whereever. </p>

<p>I feel personally I am unique among most high school students in that I've pursued an abundance of worldly things. I know that I am one of the few in my school who has purposely read philosophy writings about the world and universe and our race, and probally one of the few at my school who has understood any of it. I only made this opinion after long and hard thought through many years and thinking about the world's actualities and experiencing many of them as well.</p>

<p>I have had an abundance of out-of-academic experience, and that is where i derive my opinion from.</p>

29

<p>RootBeerCaesar: It sounds like the root of your problem is that your volunteer experience involves very stereotypical high school volunteering that's not, for lack of a better word, epic enough for you. Which is an attitude that I can understand, even if I don't quite agree with it.</p>

<p>My pre-college volunteering experience involved a lot of fun but decidedly non-epic stuff - as a preteen I worked the scoreboards for my sister's T-ball league, and as a teen I was a volunteer springboard diving judge (with training and certification) for a kids' summer league. But I also had a more epic component to my pre-college volunteerism - I was part of the Education Committee of my state ACLU. It was a small, intellectually engaging group, and I felt that what it (and the analogous groups in other states) was trying to accomplish was crucial to the future of the US, and especially needed in my socially conservative home state. If you have pet causes or organizations, you can do volunteer work to raise awareness or support for them.</p>

<p>Edit: I cross-posted with you, but my point stands. :)</p>

30

<p>^ really? I'm a national officer too for the Young Democrats of America, for which I work hard for as well, even though that doesnt really count as volunteering.</p>

31

<p>
[quote]
T26E4: I do find the way college admissions treats volunteering to be unfortunate. It diminishes the reward for the kids who actually care and would be volunteering anyway, because they don't stand out as much, and it makes genuine volunteerism look like resume-padding.

[/quote]

I agree with this. The volunteerism found in the NHS requirements is usually viewed as a chore by the students who do it grudgingly. While it does help people, it really does detract from those students who volunteer cheerfully and willingly.</p>

32

<p>
[quote]
^ really? I'm a national officer too for the Young Democrats of America, for which I work hard for as well, even though that doesnt really count as volunteering.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, that doesn't really count as volunteering (I don't think - it might depend on what you do for it). But it does suggest a volunteering path that you might like - events or awareness work for your local or state Democratic Party, or for a major non-partisan organization whose ideology you support.</p>

33

<p>" The volunteerism found in the NHS requirements is usually viewed as a chore by the students who do it grudgingly."</p>

<p>The kind of volunteering that's mandated by an organization does not impress colleges. Yes, one can tell the difference between a student who did the hours because NHS required it and a student who volunteered because they care about others.</p>

<p>For instance, I remember when S was watching the news just after the tsunami hit. He got on the phone with a friend and said that they needed to do something to help.</p>

<p>S ended up organizing a school wide project to raise money for tsunami victims. He worked with his NHS and student government to accomplish this. Probably many of the students who helped did so to get their NHS and SGA volunteer hours in, but it is very easy to differentiate those from the students like S who really cared.</p>

<p>How would one make the differentiation: S could put on his ECs that he organized a fundraising project, he could write about it in his essay, his advisor or the GC could include info in their recommendation letters because they saw what he was doing since he had to work closely with the administration. It also would come out in college interviews. S would be able to talk about the challenges he had to overcome to do the project, and why specifically he cared about it, and what he learned from and enjoyed doing the project. Students who are basically punching a card by volunteering can't give those kind of specifics because they don't give a darn.</p>

34

<p>"RootBeerCaesar: It sounds like the root of your problem is that your volunteer experience involves very stereotypical high school volunteering that's not, for lack of a better word, epic enough for you. Which is an attitude that I can understand, even if I don't quite agree with it."</p>

<p>If you don't like the activities, then work to organize better ones. That's what people who really care do. They don't sit back and philosophize. The kind of students who places like HPYS want are the ones who do make a difference -- a real difference by organizing meaningful projects even when they are high schoolers. And doing so is a lot of work, work that only people who care about making a difference would bother to take on. Reading philosophy and understanding philosophy is much easier than organizing a meaningful service project.</p>

35

<p>^ Not really, if you truly understand life. I'm excellent at organizing and already have worked my true passion (politics) long and hard. You don't get to the national level of organizing by being lazy and resume-padding.</p>

36

<p>i do not volunteer intensely, but i just "volunteer" in the stuff that I like to do.
for instance, i love making websites and designing graphics so i opted to help out a nonprofit organization with their website. it didn't feel like volunteering because it was fun, but it still counts as volunteer time.</p>

37

<p>I don't think you should be encouraged to volunteer if you seriously have such an intolerant attitude towards something that benefits others as well as furthers one's growth. If you do find out that colleges like Princeton do frown upon non-volunteers... please spare your nauseous self as well as others who'd work with you from gratiating your eminent and busy presence to a position that requires an open mind, a willing mind, and a caring heart. Society, though I often disagree with it, is right in frowning upon those with your mindset towards serving others. Unlike others I don't think you're being courageous or honest for risking being called out, I think you're just ignorant that people will call you out on this because volunteering is valued for a reason. My personal belief is that colleges, however reputation driven or materialistic, would like to see that their students are not so self-serving and absorbed into their own ego and their own schedules to recognize that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Volunteering is all about getting out of your way to do something for the community and if you don't wanna get out of your way please DON"T... the greatest service to humanity would be people like you minimizing just some of their monolithic egos and self absorption. Put that on your application.</p>

38

<p>I gotta say, the volunteer jobs that I've had were themselves admittedly stereotypical and tedious. But they were almost never boring because of the people I worked with. Sure, most of them were doing the jobs for hours, but they were people I'd never met and would have never met if I hadn't worked at the hospital or retirement home or courthouse. The jobs were always learning experiences: from working the halls at a hospital I saw human frailty at every stage of life firsthand; from working at a retirement home I discovered the wisdom inherent in so many of today's elderly (although many of them were rather cranky, lol); from working in a courthouse I understood that everybody's got their own problems in all sorts of ways, and that the idea that public servants are lazy and slow is, at least where I worked, untrue. Sure, I knew these things were true before I volunteered, but you only realize things when you yourself face them. </p>

<p>I started volunteering grudgingly, I admit. I didn't find it appealing at first. But I came to realize that volunteering is simply like work except that you're helping the community instead of helping oneself. Instead of money, a tired old lady with diabetes gets her sugar-free jello 5 minutes after she asks for it, instead of a half hour later. Instead of a paycheck, the employees of the Special Civil Part Division get to finish their work by 4:30 when the courthouse closes and return to their families early for a month or two or three. So I don't get money or fame from volunteering. I get something much better--the feeling that I've a) made things easier for a few people b) helped my community. Is that so bad?</p>

39

<p>The differences in attitudes about volunteering as a teen extend into adulthood. At our schools and our YMCA, you always see the same faces doing the volunteer work. Funny, but we have noticed that the very people who will never volunteer to help at school are the first ones to complain that things are not right. Likewise, the adults who will never volunteer to do the cooking or help in the kitchen at Y camp are always the first ones in line with their plates. Figures!</p>

40

<p>excellent post enderkin... People should volunteer due to the reasons you listed, not because "1000 hours of community service will look good for colleges"...</p>