Re: UNSW chit chat thread 2016
I think that's abusing the term volunteer. I think it's BS getting people to work for free.
You're exploiting people if you're taking advantage of their 'passion' and getting them to work for free IMO.
So therefore, I REALLY don't see anything wrong with looking for what I would get out of it other than money. Otherwise you're simply being used and wasting your time.
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But for a legit, good, non-profit cause... then that's truly volunteering.
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But yeah I think we've gone off track here. I was really looking for some other reasons for volunteering around uni other than "you'll feel good about yourself, yay!".
EDIT: And I do enjoy volunteering on things I feel that feel genuine. Like teaching STEM stuff to people and kids, those societies are great.
I'm with strawberrye. tbh i think that really comes down to what you think ur time is worth. i.e, I wouldn't call volunteering for x, y, and z a waste of time if I get a good experience out of it b/c I don't consider monetary gain to be the only thing worth using my time for. I mean, either way ur helping people. e.g, u might not be teaching kids about STEM subjects, but perhaps if u volunteer with a school, instead you'll be able to help an indecisive student with subject selection etc. ur actions might seem insignificant to u, but maybe it's a big deal to someone else.
in terms of volunteering reasons, i think the point strawberrye was also trying to say is that volunteering allows individuals to step outside their comfort zone + be involved in something ur passionate about. u'll feel good about urself, but the main thing is to commit in some way to something that you think is worthwhile. e.g u might not think volunteering for a school is worth ur time and that's fine, but someone else might disagree. To say they're being exploited is abit extreme.