Mandated Community Service

Most schools require a minimal amount of community service hours as a part of their graduation requirement. This entails students to volunteer a certain amount of hours to be at the average. Immediately, a generous action that should come from one’s kindness of heart becomes obligatory. By forcing community service to be completed, volunteering turns involuntary. Many students will decide to overachieve and attempt to polish their college applications as much as possible by completing an overwhelming amount of community service hours. Excessive volunteering to look appealing for colleges is referred to as “resume padding” by Dennis Chaptman, who reported in a study that this is prevalent in students that volunteer who are on the road to college. Students who might not have any interest in volunteering in a hospital may be doing it to receive those extra hours so that they appear attractive to college admissions offices. Stukas, Snyder, and Clary state that mandated community service “is too controlling” and that can have negative effects on the student. They believe students should volunteer when they feel they are ready to volunteer. Community service should be an action that benefits others while making one feel content. By requiring community service hours, one completes hours to benefit themselves.

            Respectively, there are cases such as that of thirteen-year-old John Prueter, who visits the elderly because he wants to, and not for the hours on paper. Prueter connects with the elderly and enjoys their company. In Source Three, one is able to grasp the impact community service had on this young boy. Because of his experience volunteering in this environment, “Prueter hopes to continue working with the elderly by studying nursing” (Source 3). Though he was obliged to complete hours for school, Prueter did it out of generosity and, in turn, this experience helped him figure out what he wants to do in his life.