I climbed 11 flights of stairs in a central Bronx housing project during the spring break of my sophomore year at Northwestern. When I reached the landing, I took a deep breath and tightened my grasp on my paper bag full of hot food. As I rounded the corner, I spotted the apartment I was looking for and gathered my courage.

My knock was greeted by a small voice from a tall, thin man, who cracked open the door to see who had come to visit. Remembering the delivery etiquette, I told him I had come with food and gave him the bag. A smile formed slowly across his face.

I can still see that smile in my mind. His was a face of aids. He was just like me, though, just like anyone who welcomes a meal. There was no essential difference between that man and me, save for our circumstances. It took a trip to New York City to work with a group that delivers meals to people living with aids for me to realize that.

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Volunteer-service trips are increasingly popular on U.S. college campuses. Northwestern's chapter of Alternative Spring Break (asb) sends out as many as 18 groups at a time on various community-service projects during spring break, winter vacation and weekends. More than 1,050 Northwestern students have participated in asb trips in the past six years. They often find that a week of helping others extends their own comfort zone and creates a lifelong passion for community service.

I've been on four of these volunteer trips, driving to places as diverse as Colorado, New York City and rural South Carolina. I've helped rebuild a burned church, maintain a soup kitchen and provide support for single mothers.

The opportunity to be involved in a community unlike my own — to really get to know people who work, live and play in what seems like a whole other world — sparks personal growth. A college campus, no matter where you go to school, can become a bubble. It's easy to focus solely on schoolwork and exams, easy to forget that there's a world out there with troubles bigger than unappetizing cafeteria food. But people who volunteer don't forget that. Their introduction to social issues, which may take the form of a trek up 11 flights of stairs, widens their perspective.

Through community service I've learned to recognize people's assets instead of their so-called deficiencies. I have developed compassion and sensitivity toward people whose lives are shadowed by stigma. I now see commonalities in all people but still acknowledge our diversity. These lessons have been infinitely more valuable than the ones I've learned in my classes. A college experience based exclusively on textbooks and parties is simply not enough. Instead of a narrow field of vision, volunteers have a panoramic view.

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001