This past Saturday I had the chance to participate in a community service project that involved building a park playground.  Although our Rose House Scholar group arrived on Saturday, teams of workers and volunteers had been working on the project for almost a week and the playground was starting to finally come together.  As this was my first Rose Scholar opportunity, I did not know what to expect.  However, I ended up with many great takeaways from the experience.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to leave campus for a  while and do some hands on work.  This was my first time leaving the campus to go into Ithaca and it was nice to finally be exposed to life outside of the college.  Additionally, I really enjoyed this particular event because of the hands on work we were able to do with the tools.  Unlike some of the other events which involve sitting and listening, being given a goal and then working towards completing it was both satisfying and a great learning experience.  I especially liked how to the workers gave us a task and a lot of autonomy after giving us some practice with the tools and techniques as well as some basic guidelines.  I believe that the hands on experience I obtained working with the tools will stick with me and will undoubtedly be useful in the future.  It was also great to support the local community and to be able to bond with my fellow Rose Scholars.  In addition, I liked how it allowed me to work on something that was not academic.  Memorable Experiences

Ultimately, I had a great time volunteering to help build the playground and I would love to participate in similar events in the future.