What Does it Mean to Serve Your Community

To me, serving my community means to offer my time in order to help better the world around me. My role as a Baruch Scholar should of course, be the role of a student who has ambitions to be successful, but on a broader note, my role is that of a person who should use their opportunities and experiences to help better the lives of those around me. Being part of the school community and actively involving myself in clubs and activities outside of my academics is of major importance to me. I believe the Honors program promotes these values and pushes us towards helping our community because the program wants to highlight the importance of being a good person all around. The goal shouldn’t just be to do things for yourself. A goal of the program is to help us build awareness and understanding of the world around us. We’ve been blessed with an opportunity to attend school on a scholarship, which saves a lot of us from a future financial burden. It’s a great thing to pay it forward and in some way, try to better the world around us. Of course, we should be concerned with our own successes, but a successful person who doesn’t make an active effort to improve their community isn’t really reaching their full abilities. It’s a beautiful thing to see people who have resources continue to help those who may not have the same opportunities available. Baruch’s Honors program strives to produce individuals who understand that their reach can go so much farther than their own personal successes, and that’s something we can all value and learn from. Community service isn’t something we should feel forced to do. We shouldn’t feel that it’s some form of punishment. Community service and helping those around us should be something we strive to do, no matter what. Having community service as a requirement will help to remind us of its importance, and hopefully, encourage us to continue the behavior of giving back in our futures.