Peace Corps comes to Penn

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel 9,800 miles from your Palm Pilot and cell phone, learn a different language in 90 days and attempt to influence a changing world. On Thursday night, Leslie Jean-Pierre and Douglas Miller, two senior recruiters for the United States Peace Corps, spoke to a small group of upperclassmen in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall about the Peace Corps experience and application process. After briefly summarizing the Peace Corps' mission and history, Jean-Pierre and Miller challenged the assembled students to determine how far they were willing to go to make a difference. The Peace Corps was started in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to aid development abroad, promote an understanding of the United States in foreign countries and to help Americans understand the world around them. Today, Peace Corps volunteers work in six fields in one of 78 different countries around the world. The typical Peace Corps volunteer serves for two years. A large number of volunteers, explained Jean-Pierre, enter the Peace Corps upon graduation from college. By presenting to groups of college students, the Peace Corps hopes to increase awareness of its activities among its largest pool of prospective volunteers. Following a short discussion of what is required of a Peace Corps volunteer and a breakdown of the application process, Jean-Pierre discussed the benefits of the program as well as the educational opportunities available. The Masters International program involves a year of study in a foreign school combined with two years of Peace Corps service, at the end of which one receives his or her Masters degree. The Peace Corps Fellows program is designed for volunteers who have finished their service and awards them with reduced tuition in a university in a Peace Corps country. Jean-Pierre also described the training process and his experiences as a health volunteer in West Africa. Jean-Pierre lived in a brick hut without electricity or running water in a remote area of Guinea. There, he helped build a health center with a $10,000 grant, worked with the girls' soccer team and built a library. "I feel that I have a second home over there," he said. Miller had a slightly different experience working as an English teacher in rural Thailand. He lived with a fellow teacher who spoke no English in a house with some electricity and running water. "The opportunity to see another part of the world so vastly different changed me and gave me a new prospective," Miller said. During the question and answer period following the presentation, students voiced concerns ranging from health to contact with family and friends. While some students were ambivalent about joining the Peace Corps, others were more enthusiastic. "I think the Peace Corps experience will develop the type of independence and resourcefulness... that will be useful in business, which is what I ultimately want to do," Wharton senior Adrian Jones said."