Natasha Raman

A:

At Dartmouth, the sky's the limit when it comes to community service opportunities! A great place to start looking for volunteer work would be at the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact. There are a plethora of programs and initiatives run by the Center that focus on volunteering at the local, national, and even international level. Although it would be beneficial to look through the website on your own to see what excites you, here are some popular programs the Center for Social Impact has to offer:

Foundations in Social Impact:
Foundations in Social Impact is a two-term program exclusively for first-year students. In this program, students learn about the pressing issues facing the Upper Valley region (which includes the town of Hanover as well as some neighboring towns) and develop vital leadership skills. In the second term of the program, students engage in a real-world consulting project where they work with a local non-profit. As a Foundations in Social Impact scholar myself, I feel that being a part of this program has sharpened my leadership skills and has made me more attuned to the issues facing the Upper Valley region. This year, we are working with the Family Place, which is a Parent Child Center that helps families in the Upper Valley region. It is so rewarding to engage with the community and make a tangible difference in the lives of others!

Social Impact Practicums (SIPs):
SIPs are courses taught at Dartmouth that incorporate a community service project within the curriculum. There are a wide array of SIPs offered, spanning from courses in the Engineering department to the Psychology department, and even the English department! An example of a SIP is a course called "Quantitative Analysis of Social Data," which was offered last fall through the Sociology department. In this course, students analyzed data and drew conclusions about disparities in health outcomes across the Upper Valley region. 

Immersion Trips:
The Center for Social Impact usually hosts two immersion trips per year: one during winterim, and one during spring break. On these immersion trips, students will have the opportunity to travel either domestically or internationally and will gain a deeper understanding of a particular social issue. Last year, the winterim immersion trip was to Puerto Rico, where students got to volunteer at an organization called El Departamento de la Comida. Through their volunteer work, they learned about food sovereignty and sustainability efforts in Puerto Rico. 

In this post, I have barely scratched the surface of all the community service opportunities available at Dartmouth. As cheesy as it sounds, Dartmouth students genuinely care about helping others and making a difference in the world! Here's a link to the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact page… I recommend that you check it out!