Called upon to serve and to care: A phenomenological study on students’ experiences in community extension services

Community service is an activity done to help selected communities in a way that will help ease the everyday living of people residing in a particular community. It is also an experience that will allow the students to enhance their own development by contributing their skills to the community. Students do not stop learning inside the four corners of the room thus, those who participated in this kind of community service projects made them become aware of social-economic realities which resulted in having a greater sense of awareness and civic responsibility. In this descriptive phenomenological research study, the researchers sought to understand how community extension service involvement shapes the students’ general collegiate experience by gathering data through their experiences. The data collated for this study consisted of 10 major activities hosted by World Citi Colleges from the year 2016–2019 in cooperation with the Community Extension Service Organization (CESO) and the participation of the different college programs. The researchers collated all the reflection essays of the students who volunteered to participate which contain their learning's and insights and these were analysed and used content analysis to synthesize the ideas to be able to formulate a theme exhibited using a framework. Based on the data collected, the researchers propose the C.A.R.E. model that emerged from experiences of the students which describes how community extension service involvement shapes the students’ general collegiate experience. The core categories are commitment to service, appreciation of life, realization of be-attitudes, and enhancement of skills.