volunteer work essay

Alexus Hadnot

Mrs. Best

English/P.2

28 January 2014

Volunteer Work

The definition of volunteer work is n altruistic activity with intentions of better someone else without financial earnings, but with the satisfaction of self-worthiness and self-respect. Many kids today help others outside of school for many reasons. Volunteer work looks great on college applications and stands out because not every high school student does volunteer work. Now ask yourself, if every student was required to do volunteer work in odder to graduate, how many kids would it affect and how? The possibilities include the include the affects of college applications, student drop out rates, and the definition of volunteering. Although some people may feel that volunteer work should be required in order to graduate, others may strongly disagree with this due to the fact that if volunteer work became mandatory, it would not only affect kids, but also no longer be ‘voluntary’.
Volunteer work looks great on a college application because it shows you helped your community or an organization as well as maintaining good grades. If it became mandatory to do volunteer work in order to graduate, it deprives students of a better chance of making their college application stand out. For this reason, students now have to find an alternative way to prove to colleges that they did other activities other than just volunteer work. With this being said, not all kids would be fond of this idea. Many kids choose not volunteer because they are either doing school work, sports, or just being lazy. People may say that volunteer work would only benefit those kids, but others would highly disagree because it leaves the students who do want to volunteer as outcast. Being an outcast is necessarily a bad thing. For instance, an outcast is someone who stands out from the rest of the crowd; if he or she is trying to get into a university, having a lot of volunteer work on their application would avail them. Hence why volunteer work should not be required in order to graduate high school.
Statistics have shown (www.statisbrain.com/high-school-drop-out-statistics/) that the total number of high school drop outs annually is 3,030,000. If every student all of a sudden was required work in order to graduate, would this number increase or decrease? Many people would strongly argue that this number would increase. The number would increase because many students already play sports, have chores, homework in their everyday life, and adding volunteer work to every individual many not work out causing some students to drop out of high school. Not only would requiring students to volunteer decrease school attendance, but also the graduation rate would decrease as well. With this being said, volunteer work should strictly be left to those individuals who ‘volunteer’ their time to work.
Volunteering your time to help another person for free is an individuals choice and should be left as a choice. Some kids would say that they enjoy volunteering so much they can consider it a hobby. Other kids who have no idea what volunteering is or who have never volunteered before can agitate the situation causing affliction among the people they volunteered to help. These kids who have no inclination to volunteer would squander peoples’ time as well as cause distress. For example, if you have no desire to do something, then that person is more than likely not going to put forth the effort to do the work. If you force a child to do volunteer work in order to graduate, it is no longer ‘voluntary‘; it becomes known as unpaid manual labor. For these reasons, volunteer work should simply be left as an option, not a requirement in order to graduate.
Many people may feel that volunteer work should be required in order to graduate. Others would strongly disagree and argue that volunteer work is simply meant for people who want to put forth the time to help others for self-respect and self-worthiness without pay. Volunteer work not only affects college applications and the high school drop out rate, but also the meaning of volunteering. Therefore, volunteer work should not be required in order to graduate.