Volunteering at Uni: You Should Consider It!

What do you think of when you think about uni? Maybe late nights doing assignments, maybe parties, maybe kicking back and enjoying a non-compulsory lecture or two. Something that might not come immediately to mind is volunteering.

Sure, volunteering might not be a crucial pillar of the university experience, but it can certainly enrich it in ways little else can. Here are some things you might like to consider, and some perks of volunteering.

Genuinely make a difference.

Basically every university has a volunteering program and volunteering opportunities for students (see below). These opportunities are varied, spanning multiple domains and very many different capacities. You might end up volunteering on-campus or off-campus depending on your preference, but regardless, you’re very likely to be helping others.

Whether that involves mentoring new students, helping at information days, or something entirely unrelated to university, you’ll be making a positive contribution to society, and that’s a genuinely fantastic thing to be doing.

Develop skills, develop CV.

“Soft skills” are the future, and you’ll develop an abundance of them when volunteering. Communication, interpersonal skills, independence, initiative, leadership. These are all things you’ll have the chance to work on and develop through your time volunteering. And coincidentally (or perhaps not), these are also things looked upon favourably by employers.

So whilst volunteering is fantastic for building your own skill set, and also for fundamentally making a positive difference in the world, it also has the added advantage of improving employability and boosting your CV. Big win!

Make new friends.

Very genuinely, volunteering is a really great place to make new friends. It gives you the chance to form ongoing connections with people who are, seemingly, interested in or passionate about similar things to you.

In your classes, you might get to know people on a fairly superficial level. Like, you might be “friends” with them insofar as you know their name, what they’re studying, and you’d be happy to spend your class time with them. But sometimes these relationships end at this point, and don’t develop into anything more meaningful. Whilst it’s definitely possible to develop great friendships through classes, volunteering is another wonderful option!

Flexible around your commitments.

Not all volunteering requires a commitment of heaps of hours at inconvenient times. You might be able to set up an arrangement where you just put in an hour or two when you can. People will understand that you have existing commitments of your own, and like, you’re not obligated to invest every single minute of your free time into a voluntary cause.

Just do what suits you!

Get involved!

If you’re interested in getting involved with your university’s volunteering program (you should definitely consider it!), here are some links that might be helpful for you.