Oct
Why Volunteering Can Bring New Educational Insights While You’re Studying Abroad
If you always felt that studying abroad was a magnificent way to embrace personal growth, know that the vast majority of people agree with you! One survey revealed that 95% of students who studied abroad felt that their experience had served as a catalyst for increased maturity. Similar percentages stated that it had increased their confidence and impacted their world view. All that is well and good, but what about taking things a bit further? Why not add volunteering into the equation as a way to not only make the world a better place but also enhance your studies? Read on to discover how volunteering can give you the practical skills that are the perfect backup to the theory you learn at college.
Honing Soft Skills That Will Make You Competitive
Education is an investment and when you graduate, you want to ensure there is a good job and a thriving corporate culture awaiting you. You can up your chances of getting noticed by developing skills such as communication, empathy, and teamwork—and volunteering can help you hone all these skills. Forbes reports that around 84% of employees and managers now believe that employees must possess and demonstrate soft skills like these during the hiring process. By listing your volunteering activities on your resume and describing the skills you obtained, you can ensure that you catch the eye of top recruiters.
Developing Language Proficiency
Even if you attend a learning institution that imparts classes in your native language, being in a country that speaks a different language offers you a great opportunity to pick up a new language—which in itself is a vital educational experience. If you attend a college where you are surrounded by people who speak your own language, it can be very difficult to become fluent in a new language. Volunteering is the perfect opportunity to be with native speakers who can help you hone real, everyday language… the kind you don’t always find in a textbook. Indicating that you worked with a team in another language is another excellent way to stand out.
Boosting Your Motivation
When you start to work in a real-life setting such as a volunteer organization, you can feel much more motivated to balance your study and work time. The more passionate you are about the cause you are investing time in, the more motivated you will feel to embrace optimal study habits at home so you have more time to spend with your volunteer team. To ensure you pass all your tests while hitting your volunteering targets, create a study schedule, breaking down goals (such as a big exam) into smaller study units and scheduling a specific number of units to learn in a specific time. Find accountability partners at school or in the volunteer organization to keep you on track and reward yourself for every small goal achieved!
Achieving a Coveted Internship
Many Fortune 500 companies value students who have completed internships while studying. Volunteer programs can be counted as an internship, especially if you can demonstrate that you understood specific tasks that helped you hone and apply your knowledge. Take a legal internship. If you worked alongside qualified lawyers to help pro bono clients, this can demonstrate that you have already honed key processes and that you have started putting your legal degree to practical use. The same goes for science-based degrees such as Biology and Environmental Sciences. By volunteering in sustainability and other efforts, you can learn more about everything from logistics to endangered species, fundraising, construction, teaching, and more.
Cultural Immersion
Top companies are increasingly prioritizing their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies, in an effort to attract top talent. They are doing so for a very practical reason. Studies have shown that diverse companies earn 2.5x higher cash flow per employee and diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time. Diverse, inclusive teams aim to embrace staff from a wide array of cultures, ages, ethnicities, and abilities. They also highly value neurodiversity. Volunteering abroad can give you a first taste of what being part of a diverse team feels like and how productive it can be. You may study DEI policies and their importance at college, but living it in the flesh and witnessing the challenges it can pose can transform you into a great asset for any team. Your experience can help you identify challenges, suggest processes and strategies, and effect DEI policies.
Volunteering abroad is a magnificent way to back theoretical knowledge with real-life experience. Doing so can help you hone both soft and hard skills that can serve you well in the future. It can also help you pick up a new language, which is one of the most vital reasons why many people choose to study abroad to begin with.
Written by Jennifer East
