How volunteering can complement your degree

Student Volunteering Week is coming up on 10-16 February - find out how you could get involved

03 February 2025

Student Volunteering Week is a national campaign designed to celebrate and encourage student volunteering; this year, it's taking place from Monday 10 to Sunday 16 February.

Hear from students and unit leaders who've made volunteering for Girlguiding work for them in a flexible, student-friendly way. And find out which volunteer roles your degree might be a good fit for, and how you can develop key skills along the way.

The unit I'm with are very good at being flexible for all the volunteers as we all have hectic schedules. Brown Owl works in a school, Eagle Owl is a doctor, we have a DofE student who has to balance school, and then there’s 2 uni students including myself. If we have too much on, we simply take a break and reschedule for another week. Both me and the other uni student are able to miss meetings if we are seeing family or going home for the summer without too much issue.'

- Kyra, student volunteer in Liverpool.

Student volunteers at Girlguiding are a great source of creativity, skills and energy. They'll bring tonnes of benefits to unit meetings and behind the scenes. Being a volunteer as a student can also help to improve your wellbeing, communication skills and teamwork. Have a click around the infographic below to find out how volunteering at Girlguiding can complement different degrees and the life skills you'll develop.

We encourage other types of flexible volunteering outside of the Monday evening sessions, because as any leader will know, there's a huge amount of stuff that takes place outside of the actual running of the meetings.

We have a lot of external young volunteers, many of whom come and do their placement, but then actually really enjoy it. So decide to stay on and often go on to complete what was well the young leader qualification… So it's all about trying to find as many different types of opportunities as you can.'

-Helen, unit leader in Kent.