Putting Course Skills to Use in the Community

鈥淓xperiential Learning is an amazing opportunity for students to put their course skills to use in the community. It also sparks a lifelong love for serving others.鈥

鈥 Faculty

Benefits to Students

student at humane society with puppy
  • Increases personal development through a sense of personal efficacy, personal identity, and moral development.
  • Increases leadership skills, communication skills, and interpersonal skills to work well with others.
  • Increases civic responsibility by reducing stereotypes and facilitating cultural understanding and a sense of social responsibility, while promoting commitment to continued community involvement.
  • Increased academic learning and GPA by promoting critical thinking and problem solving skills through real-world experiences.
  • Increased career development through exploration of career interests, improves employability through application of skills in the real world, and offers networking for increased job opportunities.

Benefits for Faculty

  • Promotes student engagement with the subject matter by engaging a variety of learning styles, strengthening faculty-student relationships, and improving the process and products of assignments and exams.
  • Course meets general education requirements for citizenship by providing social responsibility through collaboration with others in diverse settings, and through civic knowledge and participation.
  • Enhances professional development through networking opportunities within other institutions, provides new avenues for research and publication, increases awareness of current societal issues, reinvigorates teaching and enlivens classrooms.

Benefits to the Colleges

  • Improves student retention by engaging student talents and energies, creating a campus-wide spirit of engagement, and providing a substantial human resource.
  • Fosters public relations with a visible presence in the community, establish partnerships for increased community support, fosters higher quality graduates and overall satisfaction with the college.

Benefits to the Community

  • Improves community outcomes by meeting the needs of the agency through increased human resources, access to university resources, more informed and involved citizens, and new ideas and energy.