College is a time when students discover what they want to
be, who they want to be, and who they really are. It is all the experiences in
college both inside and outside of the classroom in which we discover the
answers to these questions. Sometimes it is the experiences where we learn
mostly about others that help us to discover ourselves and determine who and
what we want to be in life. As Martin Luther King once said, “We must all learn
to live together as brothers - or we will all perish together as fools.”
Through my experience with service learning I was able to better
understand the community around me. I was also able to step back after serving
the local community and analyze the meaning of a community and my place in it.
One cannot just assume what a community needs and go help the community solely
based on that. One must become part of the community interact with its members
and listen to what they have to say. This is how someone can discover the most
about a community and also about themselves.
Sometimes people believe that they cannot be part of other’s communities
that each community is like a kingdom with a mote around it and even if they
make it in they will never actually belong there. From my experience I have
found that stepping into another community and interacting and really listening
to its members does allow you to become part of that community, discover its
strengths and culture, and also discover more about yourself and how you fit in
that community. “We tinker. We invent. We dream and we imagine and we make believe until
its time to go out there and build the world we dream” (Wheatley, Frieze 59). As
a community people can put together strengths and challenges to solve issues
and make dreams come true.
This class is a community with its members all having different
strengths to contribute to its success. We have made it to the end of one of
our journey and another will soon begin. Together we will all help to shape the
future. Congratulations class of 2012.
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