MANY graduates will look back on their time at university as the happiest and most carefree years of their life.

But for the current generation of students, there is often a good deal more to three years of degree studies than going to lectures, writing essays and boozing in the Students’ Union bar.

As a result, a growing number of Essex University students are now volunteering to work in schools, community centres and hospitals in the area to gain vital work experience to put on their CVs.

In the current academic year, more than 300 students have signed up to a dozen or so projects under the union’s V-Team initiative.

They end up doing all kinds of work – from cleaning up the streets to helping children in schools with their reading.

And it’s not solely about making their CVs look good, stressed Lisa Hiscock, vice-president of welfare and community at the students’ union.

She explained: “Volunteering has been more popular than ever this year. Students are really beginning to realise the importance of getting involved in the community.

“Students can have a reputation for being lazy, not doing any work and going out all the time, but that’s really not true.

“We have a lot to give to the wider community, with about 128 nationalities on campus.”

Just down the road from the university campus, half a dozen students have been helping children at Hazelmere Infant School, in Hawthorne Avenue, Greenstead, with their language skills.

Each youngsters gets a weekly one-to-one session with a student, who helps them with sentence construction, by getting them to re-tell stories in their own words.

Linguistics student Amy Robinson, 20, hopes to train as a teacher after university.

She said: “It has been great working with the children. It has really helped me decide about my future career.

“I’m applying for a postgraduate certificate in education next year and hopefully, the experience I have gained at the school will help me.”

English literature student Trish Dongo, 23 said: “I really wanted to give something back to the community. I also thought it would help me to decide what I wanted to do in the future.

“It is so important to get involved in extra-curricular activities and go that extra mile while you’re at university, because it is so competitive these days, and it opens up so many opportunities.”

Hazelmere Infant School,’s deputy head, Dorothy Slatter, is very happy with the arrangement. She said: “It is very important for the school to maintain a good relationship with students because the university is such a big thing in our community.

“All the children know about it and they get to meet students from other cultures, which also helps to broaden their learning experience.”