This study analyzes attitudes that first-year students from three different learning communities (LCs) and their faculty had about service learning in general and their actual placement with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) serving a West African refugee and immigrant community in particular. Similar to other studies, we found that students who spent more hours engaging with West African refugees and immigrants were more likely to support service learning in the curriculum. Notably, this research adds to the pedagogical discourse around service learning by revealing that the LC, and by extension the professor(s), was even more important than the number of completed hours. Students in only one LC overwhelmingly agreed that the service-learning hours made them more aware of their own biases, helped them develop problem-solving skills, and let them see how the subject matter of their LC is relevant to real life. Our analysis indicates that this statistically significant difference can be explained by how well service learning hours were integrated in the LCs (e.g., percentage of the grade assigned to the experiential hours; number and type of reflective assignments), the professors' views and attitude about service learning, and the degree professors were (not) part of the actual experiential hours. Hence, this study shows that service learning courses are most likely to have the intended outcome when experiential hours are an integral and important part of the class and are wholeheartedly, both in theory and in practice, supported by the faculty teaching the course.