Community Service Learning (CSL) as a first year transition strategy into teacher education is a new concept not previously identified in either the CSL literature or the First Year in Higher Education literature. This paper reports on a study that investigated how first year preservice teachers experienced CSL and how this impacted on their current and future professional sense of self. The study showed that the students benefitted professionally, personally, and academically from undertaking community service. We argue that given these results and the similar framing discourses of both CSL and first year transition into Higher Education, that CSL can be readily reconceptualised as a transition strategy for first year in teacher education. (Contains 2 tables.)