Community Service

What is Community Service? 

Community service is unpaid work done to help individuals or communities in need and to improve overall well-being. It involves volunteering time and effort to support causes such as education, healthcare, public health, social services, environmental protection, or community development. The goal of community service is to give back, address community needs, and create a positive impact while fostering responsibility, empathy, and civic engagement. Community service provides meaningful ways for you to connect with others while developing key skills such as problem-solving, communication, planning, and empathy.

Why is Community Service Important?

Community service is important for pre-health students because it shows an understanding of health beyond academics by exposing you to real-world scenarios. Through service, students develop empathy, communication skills, and cultural awareness that are essential for working with diverse patient populations. It demonstrates your genuine commitment to serving others, which is a core value of healthcare professions, and helps admissions committees see that you are truly motivated to help others. Additionally, community service builds practical skills such as teamwork and leadership while providing meaningful experiences that strengthen personal statements and interviews and help you to confirm that a career in healthcare aligns with your values.

Is Community Service Required?

Community service is not usually a formal requirement. However, most health professional schools strongly expect applicants to have meaningful community service experience, especially working with underserved or vulnerable populations. Community service helps you demonstrate compassion, commitment to helping others, and an understanding of social issues. While there is typically no universal number of required hours, competitive applicants complete extensive long-term service.

How to Find Community Service Opportunities

• MSU Center for Community Engaged Learning: Service-learning students contribute their time, energy, and unique talents to nonprofit organizations, schools, hospitals, health care facilities, government agencies, and advocacy groups in ways that help to meet community needs. The service may be connected to a specific MSU course or academic major, or may simply be related to a personal passion.

• Idealist: Explore a variety of volunteer opportunities in your local area using the VolunteerMatch database.

• MSU Pre-Health & Health-Related Student Organizations:
  Students involved in MSU's pre-health and health-related RSO's are leaders in community service. Each organization is involved in service at a local, regional, national and/or international level.