By Dana Sternthal
News Editor
As students strive to become more well-rounded, many turn to trips abroad to grab colleges’ attention. While this effort is commendable, students should focus on local, more personal volunteer opportunities to supplement their resume and take advantage of out-of-country trips to primarily focus on learning about different cultures and history.
Costa offers a variety of teacher-chaperoned trips for students to participate in. These trips often have a central purpose, which can either be based on community service or experiencing the culture of the country the students are visiting. Although some trips successfully combine both service and education, students should focus on participating in community service opportunities closer to home in order to develop a more impactful relationship with the organization as they spend a prolonged time working with it.
According to a survey of 33 of U.S. News and World Report’s Top Colleges, conducted by Do Something, a nonprofit organization that promotes youth volunteering, 70 percent of admissions offices were more impressed by long-term local volunteer work than a single summer’s worth of volunteer work abroad. This survey illustrates the futility of students doing short-lived volunteer trips that are unconnected to their other interests. So, instead of spending money to volunteer in a way that is unconnected to their life or interests, students should instead spend money simply to travel and experience life in another country, while focusing their volunteering efforts at home.
According to The Water Project, building a water well for a community can take anywhere from two to 12 months. This type of project has a long-lasting effect on a community, and a student traveling to another country for a week simply does not have enough time or experience to have such a lasting effect on a foreign community.
Students could devote years of time volunteering at a local community center or tutoring at underfunded elementary schools, but many choose to sacrifice longevity for novelty.
In some cases, traveling to another country to aid foreign civilians could promote an unhealthy mentality of superiority over other cultures. Therefore, when a student travels to another country his or her mind set should be how he or she can learn from the experiences of other cultures. Students always have the opportunity to volunteer, but their limited time to travel should be spent absorbing the culture.
Biology teacher Jessica Bledsoe hopes to create a trip where students will travel out of the country to rebuild coral reefs. Although this trip is still waiting to be approved, this type of trip is one in which students can participate in volunteer work abroad while also combining their interest in either biology or environmental science. This type of trip would be able to provide students with relatable educational experiences through the volunteering.
Volunteer work is commendable, but one should focus on local volunteer opportunities that connect aspects of their own lives before flying abroad to perform service for a short amount of time. This is not to say that providing services to other nations is not an honorable excursion, but aiding organizations at home allows for long-term participation and potentially a greater impact.
However, Costa offers a few trips that successfully combine learning experiences and service that Costa students should take part in after they have already contributed to local communities.
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