By Rhea Choudhary | Staff Writer
Somewhere between logging hours in a spreadsheet and trying to meet the end-of-semester deadline, community service can begin to feel less like service and more like a transaction.
On college campuses, volunteering is usually seen to be morally good — and it is. However, when service becomes mandatory, quantified and motivated by improving one’s resume, something gets lost in the process. The intention of encouraging students to serve their communities is admirable, but the execution can sometimes strip service of the meaning it is meant to have.
I have felt this tension firsthand. As a first-year member of the Medical Service Organization (MSO), I started volunteering at Fuzzy Friends Rescue, a local nonprofit animal shelter. I genuinely wanted to help and be able to participate in a meaningful activity.
However, other times, it did not take long for that participation to turn into cramming to meet a minimum hour requirement before the deadline. This led me to volunteer at numerous school-sanctioned events. The difference between those experiences is drastic. One left me feeling connected and fulfilled; the other left me checking my watch.
This assessment is not meant to be a critique of service itself, nor of the institutions that promote it. Instead, this is a critique of how easily service can become performative when treated as a box to check instead of a relationship to build.
Research supports this concern. A study published in the Journal of College Student Development found that students who participate in service-learning specifically for external rewards show lower levels of personal growth and civic commitment than students driven by intrinsic interest. When the focus changes from making an impact to logging hours, service poses the risk of becoming void.
That hollow, empty feeling is becoming especially evident within the pre-health realm. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, multiple pre-med students stated they chose activities to pursue based on how they would appear to admissions committees rather than on community need. When service becomes performative, it stops being about who we are serving and starts being about who is watching.
Mandatory service can also unintentionally reinforce inequality. A report from Stanford Social Innovation Review shows how short-term, requirement-driven volunteering usually only benefits the volunteer more than the community, especially when students cycle in and out of an organization without any sustained commitment. Communities do not need rotating helpers chasing hourly minimums. They need consistency, trust and long-term investment.
However, to be clear, structure is not the enemy. Requirements can expose students to service opportunities they may not otherwise partake in. But having structure with no reflection risks producing disengagement. What’s missing from many service models we see is the space to ask why we serve, not just how long.
A few of my most meaningful service experiences did not begin meaningfully. Over time, each one gradually became meaningful, whether it was through repeated presence, uncomfortable learning curves or creating genuine relationships. None of that can be quantified by an hourly log.
If colleges want to encourage authentic service and build meaningful experiences, the solution is not fewer opportunities. It is fewer checklists, more conversations and less emphasis on numbers, but more emphasis on impact. Reflective essays, long-term collaborations and student-driven service initiatives can effectively shift the focus back to community instead of compliance.
Community service should challenge us, not be a tick on a resume. It should teach humility, not efficiency and leave us questioning who we helped, not how many hours we received credit for.
