What’s the Big Deal About Community Service hours?
Community service hours have become a necessary thing for kids to graduate High School. In Maryland you have to have a minimum of 75 hours to graduate high school. Doesn’t that seem like a whole lot? It really isn’t though. Although you might only need 75 hours to graduate there are many reasons why you shouldn’t stop there.
First of all, every SSL (student service learning) opportunity comes with new friends and you always learn something new. One great example of when I learned something that will be with me for the rest of my life is when I went for a volunteer training session. It was for the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection booth about watersheds at the Montgomery County Fair.
That experience taught me a lot about watersheds, so much that I even wrote a detailed blog on them. I made a few friends that made the opportunity super fun. You should take every opportunity that is placed in front of you and full fill it to the best of your ability.
SSL opportunities teach you much more than simple lesson. They teach you about what is going on around you and how you can help. Every time you help out someone in need you earn something much greater than one more SSL for your High School transcript. You get a wonderful kind of satisfaction that makes you always want to do more. That’s why SSL hours are so important. But so are High School Transcripts.
Why Do I Need More Than 75 Hours?
This question has been asked by tons of people a ton of times. There are so many reasons why you should get more than 75 hours. One of them is what I said before about getting immeasurable amounts of satisfaction due to helping your community.
Another reason why its a great idea to get more hours than 75 hours is for your High School transcript. Getting 75 hours on your transcript looks ok but it shows that you just did it because you had to. Great colleges really only take kids that go above and beyond when they don’t really need to.
Stanford University is a very prestigious private university which makes it a very hard school to get into. So a bare minimum of 75 hours won’t cut it. Actually studies show that having over 200 hours gives you much better chance of getting in, along with perfect grades, SAT, and ACT scores. So it won’t be easy but this many hours will get you a step closer to the doors of the University.
Other top Universities such as Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale require nothing less than that. If not more in some cases. This is only another one of the many reasons why you should aim for more SSL hours. SSL will help you to get into college, during college, and even after college when you start working.
SSL hours might also train you for a future job in ways you might not know. For example if you volunteer at a Presidential Election, you can use the information you learn from that if you ever become a politician. Maybe one day you might become a blood doctor, if you volunteered at a blood drive when you were younger then that experience would add to your knowledge and will let you strive to do better.
Community service hours have to be earned. They aren’t things you just do because you simply have to. But you have to want to do them. They let you have a chance to give back to your community which makes you feel great. Every person and every helping hand has a part in making a big difference. Be a part of it.
