is community service really nesassary?

[Maxwell]

I'm not sure if this applies to everybody but in my school students need to complete a total of 60 hours of community service to graduate. And i wanted to know if anybody had any thoughts on the matter as to wether it is really nesassary or not, please tell me what you think.

[Sminja]

Well, I dont think its necessary, but I do think it is a good thing. But, the world can get along fine without the help of 14-17 year old high schoolers, and a lot of the time the stuff we must do for the comm. service work is busy work. Doing a lot of it helps you get college scholarships, so i guess it couldn't hurt. I personally don't like it, though.

[Maxwell]

well do you think it is important for college, or is it just good job training?

[Sminja]

I think its more important for college than job training. I mean, most of the students find easy comm. service chores they can do just to get their hours done with, so a lot of the times its not like students are helping out people at places where their interests are practiced, they just want to get some easy hours.

[Maxwell]

but how is that useful for college?

[Sminja]

Well, I mainly mean college scholarships, like, colleges will sometimes give you a benefit if they see that you have done a lot for your communiyt. I guess it could also help you by gaining life experience for college, too...

[Maxwell]

i agree with your first point but the life experience is a bit of a stretch...i think we need more people to comment on this

[JP Dogberry]

Y'know, if the conversation involves only two of you there's a couple of little things Called Instant Messages, E-mail and Telephone calls. Use them instead. like this community Service announcement:

JamPaladin wants to start a conversation about the latest Video Game, Super Mutant Aliens 3. He wants to hear *everyone's opinions. So he starts a thread, just like a good forumgoer should.

Later, JamPaladin wants to ask SaintEhler's a personal question about how his story is going. Since no one else on the forum cares, or needs to know, he asks by instant Message.

So remember kiddies:

If the conversation is just for two,
Find something better to do!

[Maxwell]

it's not just for two, nobody else has commented yet.

[EUOL]

I think this is a potentially interesting topic.  I was forced to do 'community service' in high school in order to graduate.  I'm not really certain it helped me at all. (I sat in a library for two hours a week sorting shelves.)  It was boring work, though it did teach me that despite my love of books, I probably didn't want to be a librarian for a living....

[Maxwell]

thats a good point, and this summer i may have to be a junior councelor for nature camp, now i see how that could be helpful, but why it is needed to graduate i'm not so sure about...

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

Well, the important thing to remember is you're doing good for the community.  Okay, got that out of the way?  Here comes the "I'ts all for my personal benefit because in our society helping others isn't very important" speech;

Colleges like your community service for many a reason, but most of all it shows both your work ethic and your productivity in a society, like college.  This leads to going to college which in return trains you for a job.  Therefor, by being forced to complete community service you are being indirectly trained for the real world so you can get lots of money and whatnot so you can be happy.

Yeah, or you can see it as, "I helped someone..." but that is rarely the outlook of today's world citozen....

[fuzzyoctopus]

Well, necessary for who?  It sounds to me like they're not doing it to improve the community or give you college/job skills, but rather to try and make a school full of students into "Good Members of the Community".


Kinda funny, actually, but schools do that.  They made us take a "career seminar" class in order to graduate, which sounds like a great idea, but it was badly done, and part of it was "community service" which most students just lied about doing.

How does it work for you - do they structure things for you to do, or are you on your own?

Oh, and what kind of school is it? Neighborhood, I mean.  Is it a drug-infested pit of ghettoness?  Is it a near-private public school where everyone drives BMW's?  Is it like my high school where half the students went on to college and the other half took over the family farm?

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

but it was badly done

I'm sorry but I can't let that one go...  Poorly, not badly... again sorry...

[stacer]

I think community service in theory is a good idea, but if kids just lie about it, what good does that do?