So You Wanna Join the Peace Corps

Getting introduced to a class

Visiting an Aeta School & Village

Toward the end of my Peace Corps training, which totaled three months, my technical training cluster (11 of us) took a jeepney up a winding mountain road to St. Francis Learning Center, a special school for Aeta children run by a couple of nuns. We met some of the children, saw their classrooms, and concluded the tour with student performances of traditional Aeta dances, such as The Dance of the Monkey. We piled back into the jeepney and went up another winding mountain road. When we got out, the view took my breath away. After weeks in a gritty city, the green mountains were stunning; the pictures we took don’t do it justice.

View from the jeepney

We followed one of the nuns across this long, rickety wooden bridge. One of my cluster mates ended up pushing me along because I was frozen from staring through the huge gaps in the bridge at the rushing water a hundred feet underneath. We walked along a rocky dirt path and came to an extension school for the Aeta. The children there had desks set up under a tree.

The bridge we had to cross

That day I got to play hopscotch with kids on a hopscotch pattern drawn in the dirt, went with a couple volunteers to their village where we used our limited Tagalog to learn more about their daily lives, rolled up my pants to cool off in the river, and got a glimpse of what some Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) experience every day.

"Playing Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids"

Modern Day Peace Corps
All of us agreed that working at a school, such as the one we were visiting, was what we had imagined when we had applied for Peace Corps. Many of us wanted “that experience,” but we have to remind ourselves that we signed up not to have that experience but to serve where we’ve been asked to serve. Even though we joked that we were in “Posh Corps” sometimes, and that we were kind of jealous of the PCVs living in mud huts and “being hardcore,” we are still in Peace Corps. While the living situation of past PCVs was the mud hut, we are in a new age. Countries are developing, but they still need help. We had an interesting conversation about what I call the modern Peace Corps and the modern Peace Corps experience. It’s funny how past PCVs had to live without electricity, running water, and other modern conveniences, but now that’s what many Peace Corps applicants are seeking.

Are you looking to join the Peace Corps? What expectations do you have about the experience you’ll have?

Why Did I Join?
As I mentioned in my “Introduce Yourself” post, I am (to the best of my knowledge) the first Parsons School of Design graduate to join the Peace Corps. Why would someone who studied Design & Management at a design school want to join the Peace Corps and go live in a developing country for two years? There were a couple reasons why I chose an untraditional path for a designer: 1) It was mid-2009 when I started thinking about this plan and in the US, at that time, jobs were not the easiest to come by; 2) I wanted hands-on experience at the intersection of design and development, and believe to design for someone you have to really put yourself in their shoes*; 3) To be honest, I saw on certain application sites for some grad schools and companies that “world experience” is highly encouraged. I felt this would add something different on my resume; 4) Throughout my childhood and high school years, volunteerism was always part of my lifestyle (thanks, parents!), whether it was through school service clubs or church events, and spending some time in a volunteer capacity appealed to that part of me that believes in giving back as much has been given to me. It was only afterwards that I realized the experience probably impacted me more than it did anyone I was trying to “help” as a volunteer.

Application Process
Regarding the application process, you do need a bachelor’s degree or significant work experience to qualify. You need to be a US citizen. You also need past volunteer experience of some sort. I would recommend applying about 6-8 months before the time you would be ready to leave the country. Peace Corps is a part of the US government and we all know they take their time. You’ll have to undergo background checks and health checkups. If you have any health issues, it may take some time to place you in a country that has a trusted and accessible healthcare facility. Safety is a huge priority in the Peace Corps and some countries can be a better placement for someone who needs more frequent health checkups. I recommend reaching out to local Peace Corps organizations in your area to connect with other applicants as well as returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). Everyone has a different experience, so it’s good to talk with a variety of people.

You do not get to chose where you’re placed (though you can state if there are countries that you do not want to be placed in). I like that they only place volunteers with organizations that request a volunteer. The organization has to prove they have a need that can be filled by a PCV. From my experience, there are some organizations that don’t necessarily need help that get volunteers. Plainly put, some organizations request a volunteer because it looks good to have a foreigner in their organization. That said, I do think the Peace Corps is overall a good institution. Two out of the three goals Peace Corps has is about cultural exchange. As a whole, the world could do with more peaceful cultural exchanges. And even if the experience generally benefits the volunteer more, I’ve seen that many RPCVs end up in professions that continue to serve others.

I’ll be sharing more about my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, but if you’re considering joining the Peace Corps and have more specific questions, feel free to message me or comment below.

[Added on 6/7/17] Read about my first week at site here.

This is the path we took to get to the Aeta school. My friend Harrison had to carry that container of water all the way up for us.

*A quote I like from Lao Tzu is, “Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say 'We have done this ourselves.’”