 Service learning at Fairfield allows students to get out of the classroom and into the community. Courses are designed in partnership with local schools, civic groups, and charitable organizations, combining meaningful field work with academic reflection. Working with your professor, classmates, and community partners, you will help to create sustained, mutually rewarding relationships, gaining an invaluable perspective on yourself and your place in the world. I'm currently taking ED 200 exploration and education. I'm taking environmental economics. We're in a class called vertebrate zoology, and at the Beardsley Zoo they're a little understaffed, and they have a few things that we need to solve and we're here solving those problems. In America nowadays there's a high amount of food waste, so this company, they're trying to preserve a food that is being wasted and bring to local community food banks and churches. I'm working on a policy paper at Neighbor's Link, but in addition I tutor ESL classes. You're able to build a relationship with the kids. You learn different things from the students each day. Students come in here and I think it's a win-win on both sides, as they can give individual attention to our kids and they gain valuable experience. These experiences that you have are so much deeper and so much more personal than just memorizing for a test. You actually see like physical, tangible results of your work. Without real learning you have an objective. You have a purpose. The best way to sort of explain it is that there's the theory inside the class and there's the application outside. It's not just I'm checking off hours, it's that I'm teaching and I'm learning just as much as they are. Once you step out into the community you got to actually see what is being brought to the community and it makes me very excited to be a part of it. The work that the Fairfield University Service Learning students are doing will definitely impact the Bridgeport community and will definitely impact our work. I think it's really important to like applying what I've learned in the past and it's way more engaging than just sitting in a classroom. Service Learning opens you up to the experience of life and life is the experience of diversity and difference and building relationships in those contexts. Obviously you're learning new things like materially and you know educationally and you learn stuff about yourself too while you're doing these projects. You learn things about other people and how relationships work with other people and that type of experience is really invaluable and can't be taught in any classroom.