Journal #2 – What does it mean to serve your community? What is your role in the Baruch and broader community as a Baruch Scholar in the Honors Program and what do you think it should be? How is this related to the culture of service the Honors Program promotes?
Serving in my community means doing anything to help others. Community has a loose definition in that you can help people on a local or global scale and still be considered serving it. Examples can range from helping someone cross the street to ending global warming; although these actions vary in impact, both better the community, showing that no effort is too small. As a student in Baruch, we go to school at essentially the center of the world. No other location can get you the same internship and networking opportunities that comes with going to a New York CIty School. Although I do not believe that we owe anything to the city, we should still be grateful and serve whenever we can, no matter the scale. As a Baruch Scholar, the bar is set higher as 15 hours of service for a non-profit are compulsory. I think the service is meant to put things into perspective for us and make the scholars grateful for their opportunities, allowing us to get insight on life for the less fortunate. Being that the Honors Program allows us to attend college free of tuition; that was Cuny and Macaulay’s way of serving the community – through giving affordable education. As a member of the Honors Program especially, after being on the receiving end of such generosity, we can continue spreading philanthropy down the line to try to reciprocate the opportunities we got. If you look at all the most successful people, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, they all made a lasting impact on the world community. Even though we may not be able to change things on such a large scale, having the drive to change the world can only help you be more successful.
Alex,
This was a very thought provoking entry. Before reading it, I thought this question only applied to the city we attend school in. However, I now see how the community we serve might even be a global one.
Very interesting perspective! When I thought of community, I thought of something more local, something that revolves around the place where we live in. But like you said, it can certainly be on a global scale too. Also, I really agree with you when you said that “no effort is too small.”
Hey Alex,
I really like your perspective about community service . I think it is really cool how you broke down the different ways we can do community service and how there are different levels of community. I think that although as students we cannot impact the world “community” we can attempt to give back and impact the New York “community.”
I agreed with the points you made on community service and the different ways that we can help others on many scales. I also think it’s great for us to help others as Baruch is helping us by allowing us to go to school for free.