Enrich your studies with Community Service Learning

Join a Community Service Learning course

• What does a CSL course entail?

  The topics and activities differ per course, but you could dive into questions like: What are the various causes of loneliness in a particular city district? How to make public transport better accessible? How to stimulate recycling to foster a circular economy?
  
  You may study these type of questions through interviews, group discussions, questionnaires, or other methods. Ultimately, this could result in the joint development of an app, intervention, recommendation, action plan, evaluation, or another product that will be put to use by the societal partner.

• How to enrol in a CSL course?

  VU Amsterdam offers a wide range of Community Service Learning courses across various disciplines. Most Bachelor's and Master's programmes offer CSL courses or electives. Contact your course coordinator or the CSL team to explore the possibilities within your study programme.

  There are also dedicated CSL education programmes that are open to all students:

  Bachelor's minor: Global Health
  In this minor, you will address issues related to migration, food security or mental health care. In this, you will collaborate with local, national or international societal organisations for a period of five months. The relatively long-term involvement give you the opportunity to achieve real impact.

  Master's elective: Interdisciplinary Community Service Learning
  In this course, you will work on a complex societal challenges, such as the energy transition, urban food system transformation and accessibility of public spaces. You will collaborate with societal organisations and students from different academic disciplines, and learn how to integrate knowledge from all different perspectives.

• Examples of CSL courses

  Discover a small selection of VU's Community Service Learning courses below:

  Marketing Sustainable Innovations
  Students of the minor Sustainability and Innovation develop a marketing plan for a societal partner regarding a sustainable innovation. At the end of the course, they present their findings and the marketing plan.

  Professional Sociology Skills (PVS1 and PVS2)
  In these courses, second-year sociology students recently developed four possible future scenarios for post-COVID Amsterdam. The municipality use these to test existing and new policies to determine how well the city is prepared for each of the scenarios.

  Governing Global Challenges
  Second-year political science students collaborate with different levels of governmental bodies (a ministry, municipality, NGO and advocacy organisations) to address global challenges, such as the unintended effects of international development aid on governance, loneliness during the pandemic, and the controversial issue of having dual nationality.

  Analysis of Governmental Policy
  First-year Master's students in Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship learn how to give policy advice on a complex societal issue based on interdisciplinary research. They write a policy recommendation report on a challenging topic, such as loneliness or alcoholism.

  Management of Sustainable Innovation
  First-year Master's students in Digital Business and Innovation devise new ways to promote sustainable innovations for businesses. This could include platforms that help facilitate more sustainable energy solutions, local food distribution or urban mobility.

  VU Amsterdam offers many more CSL courses. Contact your course coordinator or the CSL team to explore the possibilities within your study programme.