“Résumé” or “To Save the Day?”: Student Motivations for Engaging in Service
Description
As a senior at Marquette, I have had four years to develop my interpretation of Marquette’s core values and see how they aligned with my personal experiences. Marquette urges students to “Be the Difference” and instills its motto of the Jesuit principle, “Cura Personalis” or “care for the whole person” across the campus. I have been given the opportunity to reflect on this motto, and it is through this research project that I wanted to uncover how well I achieved this ideal, how well my peers have achieved it, and really understand how doing so was or was not made possible. Throughout this paper, I will explain my research methods, discuss how this research will affect the Marquette community as a whole, and then ultimately offer proposals for change based on my findings. These findings surrounding motivation include: (1) transition from service at the high school level to service at the college level, (2) inconsistencies in how service is implemented across campus, (3) student internal struggle regarding service, (4) the image of service learning compared to reality.