Sometime in the last couple of months, I have begun to hear a persistent nagging voice in the back of my mind. It’s telling me that I need to get my butt in gear, or I won’t graduate. It’s telling me about community service.

Yes, community service. That wonderful 60 hours of my life without which I will not walk at my graduation next year, even if I am a 4.0 student, the captain of three sports teams, and president of 10 clubs (I am none of these things). I’m almost halfway there already! I’ve got about 25 hours that I spent doing honest-to-god work on an Indian reservation in the summer, and four or five questionable hours I spent helping my volleyball club set up for a tournament, by which I mean “throwing balls at my fellow volunteers and accidentally dropping heavy poles on the gym floor.” If you ask me, this should be more than enough to satisfy my requirement.

One of my teachers volunteers at a shelter because she loves animals. My mom does free legal work at Senior Services because my aunt inspired her. When I do my community service for school, it is not because of love, nor is it because of inspiration. I do my volunteering because I have to, not because I want to, and I don’t get anything out of the experience.

The problem is most likely the daunting number of hours we have to put in to taste sweet, sweet graduation, especially when we are encouraged to do all of our service in one place (my counselor told me it “looks better”). I have never understood why we have to do so much community service for school. Sixty hours is a lot– two and a half days, which is a long time to be working at something that you don’t really care for or believe in. Don’t get me wrong; if I were to find a cause that truly motivated me, I would have no qualms about participating. As it is, the requirement is a chore, and more often than not I hear people saying “Oh, f***, I still haven’t done that!” when the topic comes up.

If the purpose of requiring community service is to expose students to new experiences, 15 should be plenty. It will not take more than that for us to know whether or not we are going to get anything out of the experience. If we do, that’s excellent, and we can continue working for something that fulfills us. If we don’t, then forcing us to continue for 60 hours is not helping us. It is drudgery, and we will be using time that could otherwise be helpful in our already overloaded schedules. We’re not volunteering, and so “community service” becomes something we must do in order for our sentence to be up, and for us to get the hell out of high school.

I know that this makes me sound like a terrible person. I am not. In fact, I enjoy helping others. However, when my school tells me that I must do it, or else, it becomes a burden. That little voice in the back of my head whines at me, asking me why I haven’t improved my community lately. This adversely affects my desire to do anything, kind of like a parent incessantly reminding a kid to clean her room.

Another issue is “service learning.” Some school districts not only require students to do a certain amount of service, but also make them prove how it has benefited their education. This would put me back five hours of service, for while my volleyball setup did benefit other people, it most certainly did not teach me anything I could apply anywhere else in my life, much less in school. Little technical requirements like service learning just make it more difficult for students who are already unexcited about volunteering to get their time. Also, if students already have found their non-profit passion and it doesn’t happen to fulfill service learning requirements, they either have to B.S. the reflection statement, or they have to find something else to do.

If school districts take some time to revamp their service policies, they lessen the risk jading those of us who aren’t already involved in volunteering for good. By giving us a little more freedom in our requirements, the districts can do a lot more good, both for students and their communities.