Do any of you anons have experience with the Peace Corps? How rigorous is the application process? Where did you go? Did you enjoy your experience?
I'm strongly considering giving it a shot, specifically one of their environmentally focused positions.
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Three of my friends applied to the Peace Corps. I wrote applications for two, and revised the third. All were accepted, but only two ended up serving—one in sub-Saharan Africa, and the other in Eastern Europe. The Peace Corps seemed less interested in their educational backgrounds and work experience than their existing cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
One of my friends, for instance, is culturally Muslim (although he’s not religious). He was eventually sent to a Muslim-majority village in a predominantly Christian country. The other was already fluent in Russian and Polish, so he was given the choice of Moldova.
I visited the friend stationed in Africa for about ~2 months near the end of his service. I obviously can’t answer detailed questions about training and selection, but I can probably give general guidance on applications and deployment details.
For what it’s worth: both of my friends are realists. They knew from the beginning they wouldn’t be “saving” their villages, and made peace with that fact by reserving a lot of their passion and enthusiasm for students who actually wanted to learn. Both transferred their skills to real-world success—one runs a multimillion-dollar charity in his former host country, the other makes a low six-figure salary running his own business, which works almost exclusively with people who speak the language he learned in service.
From what I’ve seen, the PC is a great way to either procrastinate on government money OR to get a big step up in certain sectors (e.g., being former PC is a huge benefit for certain federal jobs and NGO positions). Otherwise the pay is terrible, and you’re 95% guaranteed to not make any difference whatsoever, outside of the handful of people who use the opportunity to exploit you for English proficiency, resources, and/or money.
On another note, PC has lots of rules, but it seems like volunteers broke them constantly. Lots of dudes hiding their motorcycles and shuffling visiting friends off to hotels whenever site managers would stop by. Met a few people who didn’t actually seem to work, but spent 50% of their time just traveling to neighboring countries.
Anyway, take whatever I say with a grain of salt, and be skeptical of anyone here who doesn’t provide specific, authentic details. Lots of /misc/tards and LARPers who’ve never left their own country with hot takes on the sorts of countries the PC primarily works in.
>Met a few people who didn’t actually seem to work, but spent 50% of their time just traveling to neighboring countries.
Hippies fricking off and not working? I'm shocked.
The guy I remember most vividly who bragged about doing that looked like a prototypical trust fund kid lol
can confirm. I served in an extremely rural village for half a year. due to circumstances I was planning to quit and said frick it and just traveled around the country for 2 weeks, visiting other volunteers along the way. you have a lot of independence.
when I called to quit they offered me a different site (same country) and I stayed on for a little while longer. then covid came and everyone got sent home anyway. I highly recommend it OP. I'll always cherish the memories I made there
cont. coming back to America was rough. this country is really dark. people are just very aggressive/passive aggressive and mental illness is common. I was in a region of latin america where people are extremely chill (as a man you can basically do whatever you want) and women are warm friendly and social. it was basically perfect. my plan is to pay off my loans and just go back but it's taking some time. thanks for reading my blog
Honestly the most difficult aspect for me would be having to learn a new, obscure language in the span of 2 months, since I only speak English. I don't know if I'm capable of that
Never did it myself; I am medically ineligible. But I did work for a long time in the international NGO space, so I know literally hundreds of people who’ve done it, ranging in current age from late 20s to near-or-post retirement (I once worked for a woman who served in the Peace Corps in South Korea, of all places, back in the 60s; she must be 80 by now).
Just wanted to say that I think this take is pretty accurate. In particular:
> to get a big step up in certain sectors (e.g., being former PC is a huge benefit for certain federal jobs and NGO positions)
Returned PC Volunteer status is universally respected among international NGO types as entry-level field experience, regardless of how useless a volunteer might actually have been on the ground. It will rarely be the defining qualification to get you an NGO job, but it will always look good on a CV.
South Africa RPCV here. Peace Corps doesn't care about your cultural (?) background. There's a random mix, but almost everyone I was in SA with had never left the US before.
Also, anybody fricking off on trips and never being at site will get caught. There's way more accountability and tracking than even the late 00's. Everyone has phones now. Can you do it? Sure. Did I do it? Yes. Everyone breaks the rules at some point. Only the dumb ones get caught. You just have to be smart about it.
>Otherwise the pay is terrible
You effectively don't get paid. I spent more money as a PCV than I received.
Stayed with some of you guys in/near Tofo. Had a blast.
It's not just white liberals. There were black volunteers with this same attitude. Difference is black vols in Africa get mindfricked because being black in Africa isn't anything unique, so they had to deal with not being speshul snowflakes for once in their life.
Overall, PC experience is largely dependent on where you were sent. SA is a security and medical hub for USAID, State Dept, and other orgs including foreign programs like JICA, so I had a lot of opportunity to network with the above types. They value your input since they can't get away with the shenanigans PCVs get away with.
This anon gets it. Peace Corps gets billed as a developmental program. It's more of a soft power projection program to get (mostly young) Americans doing the kind of grassroots diplomacy career foreign service types jizz their pants over. Then they take their experiences back home and do the reverse. It's literally two of the three main Peace Corps goals. It's not like the conspiracy theory nonsense
this guy thinks it is.
>Peace Corps gets billed as a developmental program. It's more of a soft power projection program
Not going to reiterate this same point again but I'll just add my personal experience as a non-American working as an econ dev consultant in Central Asia for the past several years.
PC exists here as a (small) component of the overall US soft power project strategy in this highly sensitive, post-Soviet, Chinese bordering region of the planet. After the US military got kicked out of the region in '17 (US had a full-on airforce base in Kyrgyzstan until then) USAID budgets tripled and the number of PC deployments tripled as well. Its been interesting to watch the whole thing unfold with my own eyes. Where power was nakedly projected here during the Afghanistan war, its now concealed beneath the veneer of foreign aid. However, the policy objectives remain the same- keep regimes and populations compliant and amenable to US geostrategic and business interests. Anyone naive enough to think an entity like the United States Government is actually giving away money charitably with no strings attached is in for a wakeup call. Just as lobbyists give money to Uncle Sam to get their way, Uncle Sam gives money to foreign states to get his way.
You make it sound like PCVs or USAID show up and start handing out copies of the Constitution lol
Peace Corps has to be invited by the host country to operate. Similarly USAID has to have a cooperative agreement in which the first step is made by the host country.
>at first
What do you mean at first?
>What do you mean at first?
Just keep reading that sentence and eventually you'll get some reading comprehension anon
"At first" is a contrasting phrase. In this case Peace Corps sends you to interesting places, but only after you've been sent to uninteresting places.
Using "at first" makes no sense because Peace Corps only sends you to one fricking place.
Absolutely not my low IQ friend
>Peace Corps only sends you to one fricking place.
Yet here I am in Thailand after starting in Bosnia
homosexual
>starting in Bosnia
Peace Corps doesn't even have a program in Bosnia.
That's not how it works. You're only in one country for two years and then you're done. That's it. Peace Corps isn't the Foreign Service.
He might not be lying. The countries change all the time, and you can volunteer for 6 month extensions.
Balkans were definitely peace corps territory in the 90s-00s but probably not anymore
It means you'll get better places the longer you stay, absolute moron.
grow up and answer the guy's question
answer the question little squirt
I already did low IQ anon
>Peace Corps doesn't care about your cultural (?) background
Perhaps, but I'd then find it somewhat strange that my Muslim friend was sent to the only Muslim-majority district in his host country, whereas my Polish-American friend--who was already fluent in both Polish and Russian--was sent to Moldova.
>(e.g., being former PC is a huge benefit for certain federal jobs and NGO positions)
If OP is interested in working for the federal government, USAJOBS has information on the dedicated hiring path for Peace Corps & AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers. I never participated in either program, but I encounter a decent number of employees at my agency who got hired this way. It can be difficult getting your foot into the door, especially if you're not a veteran, so the more hiring paths you're eligible for the better.
>(e.g., being former PC is a huge benefit for certain federal jobs and NGO positions)
it will literally disqualify you from getting a high security clearance which is where all the money is in with federal jobs
Not even remotely true unless you spent those two years learning Russian in a rural Kyrgyz village and then became completely radicalized by state media and started reblogging Kremlin output on your public socials
The other thing that anon didn't consider is that security clearances are valuable, but they also have their drawbacks. My office, which was already pro-telework, leaned heavy on remote work and authorized remote work agreements for us. Many security clearance holders don't get this luxury as many are forced to work part-time or full-time onsite due to the position's requirements. It might be worth it if you want to make bank at a government contractor or you enjoy your agency's work and mission that much, but the cat is out of the bag with telework and remote work.
>Not even remotely true
it is and will come up when you apply for one
>t. have one
this is true but its not like you are forced to work a clearance job if you have one kek. If you are a software dev you take a clearance job because it most likely pays significantly more. If you want to work from home then you take the wfh job
RPCV here
they seem to accept anybody
quite a mix of people as fellow volunteers
plenty of frick ups
1/2 won't finish the two years
staff generally incompetent
vols more or less ignored by the office
I was at my site 91 days before the office made any contact
the experience is what you make it
100% your attitude
learn the language
do a few things as legitimate resume entries
opens up a few new employment sectors for you
what sector do you work anon? i heard education was the only role that actually has a schedule and even then schools are usually secondary to the community and will shut down for weeks at a time if something becomes a bigger issue to the locals. was thinking of signing up for rwanda philippines or albania
I was a small business advisor
check the PC website and they will tell you what fields / qualifications they want
they will take just about anybody with a degree
all 3 of those places would be good to live in
after PC, I worked in Rwanda and it's probably the best sub-saharan place to go
Albania is on the Adriatic and cloe to Greece and has great roast lamb
I'd be cautious about Phipines, nice enough but you're likely to posted in the middle of nowhere
Ive been looking at volunteering for PC as a route into working in the international NGO space. My concern is that I don't think I have anything to offer that they will want. I have a bachelors degree and Ive been working in cyber security for a few years so im very technically inclined. I don't speak any other languages but Im open to learning one if thats what it takes. Anyone suggest whether I stand a chance or what kind of roles I should be looking at?
You're fine as long as you have a BA or BS. They don't care what it's in. People who don't have certain skills--agriculture, or public administration--are usually given teaching jobs. That's probably what you'd get, too.
RPCV here too. Mozambique. Had a ton of fun, was also challenging. Ask questions if you’d like!
Tell me the influence of the Portuguese. Do they forgive them for the Portuguese Colonial War? Are there still a lot of ties with Portugal?
White liberals who go on poverty safari to fill out their resumes and get into politics back home.
You know what the third world really needs? They need America to stop taxing them through trade tariffs.
Instead the americans use the trade tarrifs to sponsor ethnic insurgency, sectarian conflict, missionaries and gays to harass their children.
And what have you done for anyone mate?
an RPCV replies:
>White liberals who go on poverty safari to fill out their resumes and get into politics back home.
there are a few of these, yes
>You know what the third world really needs? They need America to stop taxing them through trade tariffs.
true, freer trade and liberal econ policies would be better
>Instead the americans use the trade tarrifs to sponsor ethnic insurgency, sectarian conflict, missionaries and gays to harass their children.
complete, unthinking lefty lunacy
I've been there to see it, unfortunately.
These stupid kids are just on a lefty kontiki tour, they go back home and claim their white power holiday as a resume point, they're no more or less culpable than ordinary tourists.
But the orginization itself?
It exists to groom youth in the same way eurasmus does, it's really quiet insidious. Their efforts in country are part of a broader political aggenda that's far more serious.
I'm not going to invest a lot of my time arguing this but basically they're not a charity, they cause global conflict through foreign interference, they support liberal elitism within America
>But the orginization itself?
>It exists to groom youth in the same way eurasmus does, it's really quiet insidious. Their efforts in country are part of a broader political aggenda that's far more serious.
you give them far too much credit
even if this were the plan, which it is not, the org is far too incompetent to get anywhere near progress
that said, yes, absolutely the PC is part of US diplomacy and intended to foster liberalism (not the Biden / AOC type liberal but pluralism and all that) by having real life examples live there
>I'm not going to invest a lot of my time arguing this but basically they're not a charity, they cause global conflict through foreign interference, they support liberal elitism within America
I hear you, but the PC does not cause conflict
at worst it is part of a broader shift in the host country and the poor selectivity in voluteers puts some fools in a position to generate bad publicity
yes, some vols return and act like dicks but they were dicks before they went over
could you please elaborate how erasmus grooms youth?
PC and Erasmus are both grooming programs in the sense that they deeply instill, through removing young people from their native social and cultural context and placing them in foreign environments, set state policy objectives. For Erasmus its instilling a sense of pan-european internationalism that is needed for the EU project to survive ideologically. For PC its an American exceptionalist internationalism that provides the ideological underpinning for unilateral American interventionism.
I don't think either are inherently harmful so long as participants are aware of why governments are funding each program and what those governments hope to achieve through them.
>American exceptionalist internationalism
what, pray tell, does this mean?
I mean, no need to go /misc/ on us, we get it that you're a euro lefty with conspiracies theories, but rather what does this phrase mean to you?
American Exceptionalism is a common enough concept that it's covered in American high schools. Go read Wikipedia before posting.
they never send you to intresting places at first. Better off join the navy and getting set up financially
My friend Kel did Americorps. They sent her to a remote village in Niger for 2 years where they had never seen a white person. They pretty much only ate 1 thing, beans and rice that they ground into a paste. She gained like 30 pounds eating all that starch and became pre-diabetic. They also didn't have alcohol in the village, so she drank nothing but bottled water. The language was incomprehensible and impossible to learn, so she essentially couldn't communicate with any of the locals other than to say hello and thank you. Sounded like 2 years well spent...
My gf's friend's fiancee's sister (ik) was in the Peace Corps - she was discharged early after being raped in Togo or something and now she can't hold down a serious job.
Apparently sexual assault of women in the PC is an open secret and is pretty common.
Thankfully none of us are women (hopefully)
know a black girl that joined, shes from the midwest. spent 6 months in burkina faso and was then gangraped by the nigs she was helping for half a year. came back stateside and im pretty certain shes got some bad ptsd from it.
I applied, and while the application was accepted (ei. I hit the submit button and got an auto-reply), the result was a rejection. I asked why and got a call from a recruiter who explained :
If you don't have at least a bachelors, you're not getting in. The 60s is over, and our job is to supliment local governments in advisory roles. While you might get a small stipend, you're expected to fund most of your own expenses, and even then the internet does like 50% of what we used to do, so there's alot of down time. And, you still have to DIY your own healthcare plans. If you need to evacuate, we'll help, but that's about it. We're all about the "experience", and less about changing the world.
Yeah, frick that. It's for trust fund kids to pretend they're white saviours. If you want to help the world, volunteer locally and vote.
This guy gets it. Actual development jobs require a masters and years of technical experience, and even then locals still make up 90% of who is in the office on site in project countries. I met a few when I worked a USAID contract one time and while they were genuinely intelligent people they truly had zero capacity to do anything meaningful whatsoever in the country