Serving America overseas - Ask us about the Peace Corps!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Serving America overseas - Ask us about the Peace Corps!

«‹›2 »

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

In my experience, there were far more books available to read than I knew what to do with. Lots of them are crap, but I read something like 150 books in 21 months and never had to look too hard for something to read. In tiny countries maybe it's not like that (like Pacific islands) so maybe a Kindle is useful, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2010 19:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 16:43

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

Pocket DeSade posted:

So in my research for the Peace Corps, one topic I've found pretty sparsely covered is the topic of host families.

I know it's hard to give advice on that, since every family and every country is different, but does anyone have anyone have any horror stories? interesting stories? First or second-hand stories are helpful.

The drive to my host families house after having been in Madagascar for about an hour, and having learned only "hello," "goodnight," and "where's the bathroom" in Malagasy, was perhaps the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2010 17:44

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

Mu Cow posted:

Are you still in college or have you just graduated? If you're still in college, Peace Corps might not be the best way to go. The wait time for getting in is around a year, so if you start now while in classes, you might end up spending several months with nothing to do between college and Peace Corps service, then it's 27 months of Peace Corps service, and if you get back while colleges are already in session, you'll be stuck for several more months. You'll probably end up out of school for over 3 years, which could make it hard to get back in.

Peace Corps seems to be more of an after college thing as pretty much ever position requires or suggests that volunteers have a bachelors. It's not impossible to get a position with a just a high school diploma, but you need have a good bit of experience in the field to be a competitive candidate.

One good way to stay in college but kind of take a break is to do study abroad. Most study abroad programs understand that students are doing it for the experience and not the academics, so course loads tend to be light. I hated my first two years of college, but then I spent a year "studying" in Sweden. It was great.

You can time it right, though. I started applying in June/July '06, between Junior and Senior year of college, and left June '07 right after I graduated. When I got home I just had to kill the summer before starting grad school. All depends on the program, though (education was June-June)

# ¿ Sep 29, 2010 02:06

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

KillingPablo posted:

Health RPCV from Burkina Faso checking in here. I've been back for a year now, and I've found that if there's one thing that can makes you miss West Africa, it's the craziness of grad school.

Oh yeah, and the highlight of the medical process for me was learning that I have a very minor genetic disorder. Thanks Peace Corps!

I found out I have a heart defect when I went through the process. I'll need heart surgery in 15-20 years or so. Thumbs up.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2010 05:06

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

Iwate posted:

I got in.
My invitation is in the mail. An e-mail said:
West Africa. Primary Teacher Trainer. Late June.
According to the PCWiki, I will go to The Gambia.
yay

The President of the Gambia is one of the craziest motherfuckers in Africa. I think he might have recently made himself king...

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 03:35

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 16:43

Evil Adam: Jul 18, 2003; He's very good.

RagnarokAngel posted:

Checking in with you guys, my training site ended up being fairly urban (For Indonesia) so a net cafe was easy to find. Just a few random thoughts, sorry for lack of direction just wanted a week to give my impressions to people who asked and those leaving soon.

Going to avoid saying anything negative when I post because we're not supposed to and there's only 30 of us so it'll be easy to guess who did it should anyone find this.

The good news is I don't really have anything bad to say. Peace Corps has been very informative and helpful and the bahasa Indonesian lessons while tiring are extremely helpful. I'm making more progress in a week then I ever did for any language in high school.

Conditions here are far better than I expected. I'm not sure what I expected exactly but it's pretty comfortable here. I got lucky enough to be in the mountains so the temperature rather than being south east asia "oh god its hot" its a pretty comfortable temperature all day.

Not much else I can think of at the moment really. Be glad to answer any specific questions if people have them, just wanted to check in.

I said whatever I wanted to on my blog and I'm fairly sure the higher ups saw it. Peace Corps can blow me if they think they were gonna pressure me to censor myself.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2011 06:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Serving America overseas - Ask us about the Peace Corps!

«‹›2 »