Everything Under The Sun: Can You Have Meaningful Volunteer Experience In College?

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Can You Have Meaningful Volunteer Experience In College?

The student team that runs Lean 0n Me at MIT.

Did you know that many colleges have volunteer projects and encourage students to volunteer? Even back when I was in college, one of my brothers and I made contact with an on-campus organization that helped students connect with volunteer opportunities. Now, though, there is a proliferation of opportunities, beyond what we had experienced.

Let's look at some opportunities for students from MIT. With the change in technology from my student days to the present, organizations have been able to communicate in a more timely way and also individualize projects and requests for help.

At MIT, LEAN ON ME uses an online platform, in which students can post a need for help, and helpers can respond. Requests can be for emotional support, academic assistance, a need for transportation, even to touch base with someone about feeling pressured. The person can then pick one of the responders to help him/her. Basically, this platform helps to make on-campus life easier.

A student-created organization, FOSSIL FREE MIT, developed in response to the Institute's release of their plan to respond to climate change. Students wanted to push administration to do more. Their first action was to sit in outside the Provost's and Dean's offices, where they could easily converse with students and administration, in an effort to improve communication.

More than 120 students have participated in the sit-in, which has been running continuously, until March 1. The Boston Globe took note after the 116th day. Nina Lytton, a 1984 graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management, noted, "When we do something at MIT, we do it thoroughly." On March 1, negotiations started over the climate plan. In order to allow greater participation in the Institute's climate goals, a climate advisory committee was formed, and Fossil Free MIT is up in front, helping to implement the new initiatives. When all is said and done, the Institute has the new goal of a 32% reduction in carbon emissions by 2040.

Fossil Free MIT has now expanded beyond campus borders to other colleges and universities around the world. At least one of the universities came from a message of support generated from a university on the other side of the globe during the long sit-in, University of Utas in Tasmania.

Students engaged in the sit-in were counting the days.

So, yes, indeed, college students can participate in volunteer projects and with volunteer organizations while they complete their degrees. While they do so, they can change a life, change a university, or change the world.