To discover or affirm your faith and to enhance that relationship through service to your community. To assess your own attitudes, beliefs and values about your community and the world. To develop a life long habit of service to others, in light of the vision of St. Vincent DePaul. Develop a greater willingness to work toward the resolution of societal problems. To broaden your horizons, learn about different groups and situations, and test a potential career choice.
Reflection is critical in challenging or reinforcing values.
Students may find their assumptions or philosophies challenged through a service experience and need to hear other opinions to help understand their experience. Students may come to better understand their own ideas about the experience through listening to others as well as their own verbal exploration. Without thinking about the experience, the service can do the student more harm than good, especially if it reinforces negative stereotypes. Reflection may be the only way some students learn that their experience is valuable to the community. Effective reflection should go beyond the application of concepts learned in the classroom.