Ever since the 8th grade, I’ve been doing community service – sometimes required, sometimes not. So I wasn’t surprised when I found out that part of the requirements for being a Baruch Scholar was to complete 8 hours of community service in our freshman year. I probably would have been surprised if it wasn’t a requirement. By being accepted into this program, we’ve been given such a great opportunity. We don’t really have to worry about school-related expenses [except for maybe books]. Do I hear MACBOOKS?! We have access to all sorts of advisement, whether it be for writing, homework, classes we hate, jobs, or just life. We study in one of most cosmopolitan cities of the world, overflowing with cultures and people. And something that I think is the most important: we’ve been able to create a sort of family, albeit somewhat dysfunctional, through our LC’s. We’ve all managed to create at least one close friendship, if not more, that we hope to maintain for the next 4 years, and maybe even the rest of our lives. This might not have been able to happen as easily if we were not in Baruch Scholars.
We are given so much through this program that it only makes sense to give back to the community and people surrounding us. Whether we participate in soup kitchens, help clean up parks, teach children, etc., everything and anything we do can make a difference. That’s what I see Baruch Scholars as – a platform to help us make a difference in the world today and in the future. Whatever community service we choose to do will help better society around us. To us, it may not seem to be anything big, but every little step counts.
Civil rights activist César Chávez once said, “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.” By requiring us to volunteer and do community service, Baruch is only pushing us to take control of our future and the future of the world around us.