Volunteering

[AoE]

I'm sure atleast one of you dudes has experience with volunteering? Having shit luck with my job search so I figured if I volunteer, at the very least I can start building some type of network and go from there.

I live in NYC just in case anyone misses that tidbit under my avatar.

[jmc]

What do you like to do...... or areas you want to volunteer at?

Are you looking more so volunteering along the lines of a internship, or volunteering at childrens hospital?

[Nephlite]

I'm a volunteer firefighter/EMT. The training and experience is great for my field and can take it anywhere (prospective job opportunities). Buddy of mine was in the service for almost 10 years and he took a Deputy Fire Chief position out in Virginia making $80,000 a year.

Otherwise i'm sure the NYPD has volunteer auxiliary police positions and i'm 100% sure there's a full time volunteer squad for NYFD. Not sure of what your interests are but those are some examples.

[AoE]

Sorry about the lack of answers. Growing up, I was more or less raised by the tv so I never really found out what I liked. I've been thinking about it a lot and I just wanna do something where I can give back to people in someway I suppose. I know there's probably plenty of stuff to find on the internet but I wanna look at some personal experiences to see how volunteering affected people's lives and make a judgment call off that.

Sorry if that's kinda vague.

Edit - I'm going to school for computer networking if that helps someone.

[Venga]

When volunteering people don't mind to much about degrees and grades, they're often in need of the help. I worked 3 years at a horse riding center for disabled riders, mainly for the fact it looks amazing on a CV and also because it just felt pretty good. I think it opens doors for you in the future.

I think it's well worth the ground work and people are often taken a back a 21yr old male has given up time to help out for free.

[OWS_Tonx]

I did volunteer IT work for a behavioral health facility and when they ended up getting a bump in money from their contract, they hired me and a friend of mine. I'm good friends with the guy now, bowl with him on a league weekly and golf at least once a month. Shit's lined up nice, once the chief info. officer retires, position is mine

[shiarua]

Did you go to college and get a degree? If so, get an unpaid internship.

[jmc]

Otherwise i'm sure the NYPD has volunteer auxiliary police positions and i'm 100% sure there's a full time volunteer squad for NYFD. Not sure of what your interests are but those are some examples.

I know from reading that the OP is not looking for this type of work, however good call on Aux police position. NYPD is always looking for officers of any kind, even if its volunteer.

[AoE]

Did you go to college and get a degree? If so, get an unpaid internship.

This is like part of my graduation requirements, so for me this is a given and I actually looked up a few places recently but thanks anyway.

OWS, I might look into that. Actually been thinking about whether I should intergrate the health field with IT since I was told that they sorta need it right now.

[Nephlite]

I know from reading that the OP is not looking for this type of work, however good call on Aux police position. NYPD is always looking for officers of any kind, even if its volunteer.

Now I know that's not what he's looking for but the original post didn't reflect that. Not trying to bust your chops or anything.

Looking at it now, you could easily find a volunteer IT job at any police department as they're always looking for people to improve their database storage and communications line.

I know in the DCMPD, there's a retired fraud analyst who volunteered for an IT position and was able to get us a gem of a program called "iMobile" that links our current Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system to an application through the iPhone/iPad network that broadcasts CAD entries through said devices. They're coming up with an app to use through any current smartphone and probably the hardest thing they deal with is the database security and networking (right up your alley, op). As most agencies are moving slowly from old analog systems to fully digital, it's a field that you could easily pop in to and it would give (at least in my mind) a hell of a lot of people peace of mind with competent and fresh faces bolstering the advancing technology in the field of emergency response.