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University: an opportunity to help others?

By Michael Wyatt, on 6 April 2018

Michael, a Human Sciences students tell us about the ways you can use university to help you help others. 

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

From the moment we reach secondary school, or for some even before then, we are told how useful university is. We are told it will help us get good jobs, meet interesting people and present us with better opportunities. University is portrayed as a chance to utilise resources handed to you that allow you to make something of yourself and grow as a person, but that’s not all it is. University is a remarkable place with avenues that allow us to reach our full potential, but it is also a place that provides a never-ending stream of opportunities to help others, and use our abilities to enable others to reach their full potential too. Whether it be participating in voluntary schemes, involving yourself in mentoring programmes or teaching useful life skills to young people, university is, above all, a place to help others.

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