going to add my two cents here.
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i worked for the collegiate ambulance service at penn state university for about two and a half years. during that same time period, i also worked for the largest local county-based service around. there are huge difference between the two!
joe schmoe emt, out of college, will likely be working for a "standard" ambulance service or transport company. some college students, on the other hand, have the unique opportunity of working for a collegiate based service if their college or university offers such a squad. what's the difference, you ask?
for starters, you'll work with crews and partners that are more or less your own age, and who all share many similar interests. definitely not so for "standard" community services.. i've worked with partners who were 30 or 40 years older than me (more on this below.) i made a ton of new friends working for my collegiate service, and campus ems represented some of the most important experiences of my college career.
now, don't get me wrong.. community services are important. first off, you can learn a lot from the ems "old timers".. but more than that, you'll probably be exposed to a greater variety of emergency calls. campus based services, dealing with a college population, usually find themselves primarily handling orthapedic injuries and alcohol overdoses (although you might occasionally go on coverage calls for other services.) but this limitation isn't so bad, as you still will see pretty intense calls from time to time (suicides, sexual assaults, etc.) and i think the immense value of the campus ems social circle outweighs this minor limitation.
all in all, i'd highly recommend working for both if you have the opportunity.. if i had to choose one, i'd choose a campus service every time, because you really won't (with rare exceptions) have that opportunity once you graduate.
for more on campus ems (public service announcement!) visit
the ncemsf.
