Community service

Colleges[edit]
Though not technically considered a requirement, many colleges include community service as an unofficial requirement for acceptance. However, some colleges prefer work experience over community service, and some require that their students also continue community service for some specific number of hours to graduate. Some schools also offer unique "community service" courses, awarding credit to students who complete a certain number of community service hours. Some academic honor societies, along with some fraternities and sororities in North America, require community service to join and others require each member to continue doing community service.
Many student organizations exist for the purpose of community service, the largest of which is Alpha Phi Omega. Community service projects are also done by sororities and fraternities.
Beginning in the 1980s, colleges began using service-learning as a pedagogy. A partnership of college presidents began in 1985 with the initiative of boosting community service in their colleges. This alliance called Campus Compact,^[4] led the way for many other schools to adopt service-learning courses and activities.
Service-learning courses vary widely in time span, quality, and in the balance of "service" and "learning" stressed in the course. A typical service-learning course, however, has these factors in common:

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  A service component where the student spends time serving in the community meeting actual needs
  
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  A learning component where students seek out or are taught information—often both interpersonal and academic—that they integrate into their service
  
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  A reflection component that ties service and learning together
  

Reflection is sometimes symbolized by the hyphen in the term "service-learning" to indicate that it has a central role in learning by serving.^[5] Reflection is simply a scheduled consideration of one's own experiences and thoughts. This can take many forms, including journals, blogs, and discussions.
Service-learning courses present learning the material in context, meaning that students often learn effectively and tend to apply what was learned.^[6] As the book Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? notes, "Students engaged in service-learning are engaged in authentic situations; they get to know real people whose lives are affected by these issues… As a result, they have lots of questions—real questions that they want to have answered."^[7] Thus, students become interested and motivated to learn the materials to resolve their questions.
Community service learning strives to connect or re-connect students with serving their community after they finish their course.^[8] It creates a bridge for the lack of community service found among college-age people in the United States.^[9]