Your education is not just about you and your future career. It is also about enabling you to contribute to your community and play a part in bettering the world. Consequently, the service learning program at CSUMB offers you the opportunity to be involved in real-world community issues as part of your academic program, so that you can learn about service and social responsibility as a core part of your education.
Service learning combines formal coursework with thoughtfully organized community service experiences that teach about diversity, compassion, justice, and social responsibility. Service learning courses address community-identified needs while helping students meet academic, social, and civic learning goals. At CSUMB, service learning helps students develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to be multicultural community builders.
Through service and guided self-reflection, students learn about themselves and their relationship to the community around them. Service learning allows students to engage with real-world issues and social problems, and to work with community organizations to become "part of the solution."
CSUMB is one of the few public universities in the country where service learning is a graduation requirement. Each semester, over one thousand CSUMB students are working in the community at over two hundred local schools, community organizations and governmental agencies.
Service learning enables you to develop social, moral and multicultural civic skills. It provides you with unique opportunities for personal growth and learning not possible in traditional courses:
- Learn from individuals who are different from and similar to you in age, economic means, education, physical ability, background, culture and ethnicity.
- Examine your own values, attitudes and beliefs.
- See surrounding communities as part of your classroom.
- Gain experience in your academic or future career field while making a difference in your life and the lives of others.
Sponsored By
College of University Studies and Programs > Service Learning Institute
Included Academic Fields
Community Service ~ Public Service ~ Civic Engagement
Online Components
None
Associated Course Codes
SL ~ all courses with an "S" following the course number (e.g. LS 393S)
Associated Minor
Service Learning Leadership Minor