No, its not acceptable in either case, unfortunately. Anything an American COULD be paid for you cannot do. Even in a soup kitchen an American COULD be paid for it.
If your degree requires a work component, the University will explicitly authorize you to do it. So concerned4us is right, talk to the international center.In other words for F1 student no work is legal except specifically authorized.
I could be wrong, but Im sure that you can volunteer as long as what you are volunteering as isnt something that an American could be paid for EG, volunteering serving in a soup kitchen = acceptable
volunteering in an office sorting out files/internship activities = not acceptable (it can reasonably be assumed that an American could be paid to sort files, whereas an American would not be paid to serve food to the homeless) Hope that makes sense.
just want to make myself 100% clear, volunteer work is considered illegal on F 1 visa?
Volunteering you are allowed to is only real volunteer work. Any productive work without pay is not considered volunteer and is illegal unless you have work permit.
I heard it on one of the conf calls with Mr. Khanna last year.