Volunteering benefits students, community

USC is generally known for being a school that maintains a commitment to giving back to its surrounding community.

We have a USC Family of Schools that ranges from nearby elementary schools to visual and performing arts magnet schools that provide a quality education to children in the community and foster an environment in which those students expect to attend college.

Our community service programs are active as well, including the Joint Educational Project, which gives students the ability to get hands-on experience in our surrounding neighborhoods, often for credit in an academic course.

However, we can’t stop and pat ourselves on the back just yet. Our community can always benefit from more involvement by USC students and faculty, but both students and the university as a whole will benefit from increased student involvement in the community as well.

The prospect of earning extra credit in a Spanish class by volunteering to work with children at a local elementary school shouldn’t be the only thing driving a student to volunteer. Volunteering is an incredibly rewarding experience, and with all the service opportunities that USC has to offer, it’s easy to do as well.

According to a recent study done by the Corporation for National and Community Service entitled The Health Benefits of Volunteering, “Those who engage in volunteer activities are less likely to suffer from ill health later in life and may be introduced into a positive reinforcing cycle of good health and future volunteering.”

Although this might seem like stretch at first, it’s actually not too difficult to see why it might work. Volunteering simply makes you feel good about yourself and increases your personal satisfaction.

I’ve never met a single student who went out to volunteer in the community and didn’t feel like a better person afterwards, and when you feel better about yourself, you’re more likely to live a healthier life.

Especially when working with grade school students in the surrounding neighborhoods, volunteers usually establish a truly rewarding personal relationship with those that they’re working with.

JEP recently just paired up with USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative — a program that prepares local low-income students for admission into USC — in order to provide student mentors for local high school students to help them in writing and college preparedness.

The success of this new program shows exactly why volunteering can be such a personally rewarding experience for college students.

“The Writing-Mentoring Program has been a great opportunity for students to connect with community students and connect to books,” Alice Villasenor, JEP’s director of Public Humanities Initiatives, recently told the Daily Trojan. “It really is a two-way street, which is the essence of service learning.”

In addition to the relationships these volunteers develop with local students, they also enjoy the immense satisfaction of knowing that they’re helping a student prepare for admission into USC — a student who otherwise might not have ever thought such a goal was remotely possible.

Volunteers can also learn the importance of time management. As college students, we’re all probably busier than we’ve ever been before in our lives. And when we’re not spending our time writing a paper or working at an internship, we’re most likely out enjoying ourselves as college students should.

However, taking even a couple of hours a week out of our busy schedules will reap rewards far beyond the amount of time we put into volunteering itself. With more extracurricular activities such as volunteering, you’re forced to manage your time more efficiently in order to get everything done while still leaving some free time to head to a party with some friends.

In fact, in a report entitled College Students Helping America by the Corporation for National and Community Service, it was found that students who worked part-time were more likely to volunteer than students who didn’t work at all.

On top of all the personal benefits enjoyed by volunteers, community service also helps to brighten USC’s reputation as well. USC has been committed to being an important factor in the community, especially with so many low-income residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Community service by Trojans helps to improve our reputation in the eyes of our neighbors, especially to those who might simply view us as overprivileged trust fund babies who come live in the middle of their hometown for four years at a time.

In short, volunteering benefits everyone. Go out and show your Trojan spirit by giving back to your community — not only will those who you help appreciate your effort, but you will be improving yourself and the university as well.

Jared Servantez is a freshman majoring in print and digital journalism.