<p>My S is heading off to Eastern Europe in a few months. >></p>
<p>So is my 21 year old daughter. She is in the Master’s International program and has almost completed the first year of grad school. If all goes according to plan, she will graduate when she is 24 after her stint with the Peace Corps.</p>
<p>This is bad news. I’m a Sociology major, minoring in Philosophy and it seems PC favors people with technical degrees. I always wanted to do PC, ugh. I can’t get a stable job with my degree and I can’t even volunteer overseas.</p>
<p>The peace corp is selective. They’re looking for people with a balance of do-gooderism, technical skills and adventurism; can’t be too much of any one category. </p>
<p>One of my son’s friends was evacuated from his post when civil unrest erupted in the area and was eventually reassigned to a neighboring country. He would have stayed but the Peace Corps is quite conservative and doesn’t take unnecessary risks with the safety of volunteers.</p>
<p>Health and medical care is at issue in any developing country. Again, my understanding is that the PC takes a very conservative approach toward health and is responsive and agile in getting their volunteers medical assistance. The key factor is that the individual has to use judgment in communicating his/her needs. Often people in care giving positions wait too long to ask for help themselves.</p>
<p>D is hoping to go into the Peace Corps, or some other service organization after college. Nice that she has a future plan, but I’d like to see her work on the current choice- “what colleges do we visit this summer?”</p>
<p>Oh, H and I are fine with the PC idea. I hadn’t really thought about it, but we are raising our kids in places that the Peace Corps has evacuated. They do seem to lean towards being very cautious.</p>
<p>PC is not necessarily looking for technical or health degrees. Teaching english, community development, youth development and business development are some of the projects that volunteers are assigned.
However it has gotten much tougher this year to be invited to PC. My S believes that had he been in this year’s application batch, he’s not sure he’d have been invited. Applications have gone up considerably. His application process started last year July, medically cleared some time in September and his invitation came almost at Christmas.
He hopes to do the PC fellows program when his stint is over.</p>
<p>DD has an anthropology degree, with a Latin minor. She passed the first hurdle last spring and was accepted into the master’s international program, interviewed at the beginning of the summer, and did all the screenings in the fall. She received her assignment in March and the paperwork to do the final steps - official passport, etc. She will be teaching English.</p>
<p>Graduation coming up in June for mine. No future plans yet, but she did attend a PC info session and has given that some consideration. Sounds like she might not be a desirable candidate given her two majors. I was a bit worried about the PC, but some of the posts on this thread made me warm up to the idea.</p>
<p>I can speak a bit about the application process. </p>
<p>I applied to PC about a year ago and was “deferred.” I was classified as eligible but was never offered a post. I eventually found something that fit me better and withdrew. At the time I applied, I had a 4.0, language skills, and international experience. Also, both my parents were former volunteers. The experience was very disheartening. </p>
<p>I found the application process to be extremely “rigid.” There are something like six different programs, each of which has very narrow prerequisites, i.e. X months of trail maintenance work. Most of my previous volunteer experiences consisted of office work, which barred me from several programs. The interview itself was strange. Many ultra-specific questions that were obviously read off of a standard form. Things like, “Describe a situation in which you showed leadership in a diverse setting.” </p>
<p>My advice to anyone considering applying is to remember that PC is a government agency, and to prepare for bureaucracy. Make sure you have the right kind of experience going in (especially if you are a liberal arts type), and be persistent.</p>
<p>It seems like I’m not going to make it to PC. Shucks.</p>