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If Harvard wants its students to serve the world, it must require them to serve their community first.

As students stress through club comp season or begin coffee-chatting their way into finance internships, it’s easy to become entranced with the many doors Harvard opens. Large salaries, influential connections, and all-expense paid trips to tropical climates seem to be hallmarks of the so-called “Harvard dream.” Yet these paths are antithetical to the idealised purpose of a Harvard education.

Broadly speaking, we should expect Harvard to equip students to lead meaningful lives for the greater common good. While calling attention to the preponderance of finance, tech, and consulting job-seekers isn’t new, a novel approach could consist of implementing a public service requirement within the College. Doing so will benefit students, who will gain leadership, empathy, and interpersonal skills; and community members, who will be the beneficiaries of Harvard’s efforts.

Research has demonstrated the benefits of volunteering in college. Those who volunteer exhibited growth across a wide range of interpersonal skills, including leadership. Additionally, volunteering was associated with higher degree aspirations.

There’s also qualitative benefits: Doing unpaid work with the primary purpose of helping others is character-building in a manner separate from that of leading a campus organization. It’s often difficult to learn empathy or humility in a classroom, but Harvard could teach these skills by asking students to meaningfully serve individuals they might never otherwise encounter.

Previous efforts have attempted to institutionalize service. An initiative to include public service in the undergraduate curriculum was opposed by administrators in 2014, when the discussion centered around whether students should be required to take a course with a public service component. At the time, some felt the College lacked a sufficient platform of courses with service elements, and a consolidated requirement would have required drastic and hasty restructuring.

Today, even with restructuring efforts, simply adding a new “public service” class requirement to a list of other Harvard College-mandated courses would still be a bad idea. The College’s course requirements are already over-complicated, and adding a new class to the mix would further convolute a frustrating system. When taken in the context of Harvard students’ overall disengagement with coursework, it is highly unlikely that students would take a service-based course seriously.

Instead, Harvard could require students to complete a set number of community service hours over their four years. Many institutions have already implemented such a plan. Harvard Law School, for instance, requires students to complete 50 pro bono hours to graduate. At the undergraduate level, Tulane University asks students to both complete a service learning course and a service-related internship or project. Harvard is a leading institution; instituting a service requirement would set a standard for emulation across higher education.

Existing channels could be leveraged to help students meet the requirement. Many students could fulfill it through campus organizations in which they already participate. More than one thousand students join the Phillips Brooks House Association — Harvard College’s main volunteer hub — each year. Almost another thousand applied to join The Institute of Politics — Harvard College’s main political and public service hub. Both offer community service initiatives. These organizations connect Harvard student volunteers with the broader Boston area, allowing many of them to engage with perspectives and backgrounds that differ from their own.

There are other methods, too. Perhaps students could be required to participate in Harvard’s existing “Global Day of Service.” The event boasted over 1,100 volunteers in 2024, but those numbers included staff and alumni in addition to students, meaning less than a sixth of the undergraduate population participated — a paltry figure. Partnering with initiatives from around the Boston area, Harvard’s Global Day of Service could prove even more impactful through increased engagement, benefitting the community and students alike.

The change wouldn’t require much effort — it’s already simple for students to find service opportunities. The Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship keeps a running list of volunteer opportunities. Students could choose areas in which they’re already interested, be it after-school education, public health, or the environment.

Volunteering is a two-way street. Imagine the difference thousands of undergraduates volunteering in the greater Boston area could make: cleaner streets, fully staffed shelters, and increased mentorship for youth. All the while, students build valuable leadership skills and develop their characters.

At a school that prides itself on molding civic citizens, it’s time for us students to take responsibility for the good of the community we live in. Engaging in public service is step one.

Victoria L. Dolan ’28, a Crimson Editorial Editor, lives in Kirkland House.