Joining the Peace Corps

[Chevy Chase Fan]

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This is something I'm pretty set on doing after I finish my prereqs in the next year or so. I'll probably start the application process quite soon. I have a BBA in information systems, so my education is best suited to a business position. However, the Corps has a lot of health care education type positions (AIDS/HIV prevention, nutrition, sanitation, etc), which I thought might be a good fit for an aspiring med student. What would you pursue? (assuming you have a choice, which I may very well not! 😀 )

 

[CoolWhipp]

this is something i'm pretty set on doing after i finish my prereqs in the next year or so. I'll probably start the application process quite soon. I have a bba in information systems, so my education is best suited to a business position. However, the corps has a lot of health care education type positions (aids/hiv prevention, nutrition, sanitation, etc), which i thought might be a good fit for an aspiring med student. What would you pursue? (assuming you have a choice, which i may very well not! )

aids/hiv

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

ttt

 

[phltz]

You don't necessarily have a choice in what you do, although you can pitch yourself to them as having one particular set of skills more than another.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa (Tanzania 2006-2009), and pretty much every program seemed to be tied into HIV/AIDS. I was an education volunteer, assigned to a secondary school to teach math and science, but I also ran a health club at my school, helped out a bit around the local hospital, and had pretty close dealings with some local health oriented NGOs. A lot of small business development volunteers work to help cooperative organization for people living with HIV/AIDS to develop income generating projects so they can support themselves better. A lot of environmental volunteers do work with sustainable gardening with such organizations to improve nutrition for people living with HIV/AIDS. I visited Peace Corps volunteers in a few other African countries, and it seemed like everyone was encouraged to do work relating to HIV.

I think you should aim for the assignment you'll be best at, the one where you'll bring the most to the table and make the biggest difference. You'll probably be able to work in some sort of health related angle, even it your assignment doesn't explicitly involve it.

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

right on, thanks for the detailed info. how was your experience overall? was it worth the commitment to you?

 

[phltz]

right on, thanks for the detailed info. how was your experience overall? was it worth the commitment to you?

It was a intense experience. It was tough, beautiful, depressing, uplifting, and unbelievably difficult. I grew a lot. I learned a new language, met a lot of great and different people, saw some amazing things. I made rockets out of an empty water bottle and a bicycle pump for my physics class, cooked a thanksgiving dinner starting with a live turkey, a pile of bricks and some charcoal, I traveled all over East Africa, I got a few different parasites, learned a lot about diarrheal illnesses, I was received as an honored guest, I had rocks thrown at me, I succeeded, I failed, and in the end I think I made a real difference. Absolutely it was worth it.

 

[kansaskid]

It was a intense experience. It was tough, beautiful, depressing, uplifting, and unbelievably difficult. I grew a lot. I learned a new language, met a lot of great and different people, saw some amazing things. I made rockets out of an empty water bottle and a bicycle pump for my physics class, cooked a thanksgiving dinner starting with a live turkey, a pile of bricks and some charcoal, I traveled all over East Africa, I got a few different parasites, learned a lot about diarrheal illnesses, I was received as an honored guest, I had rocks thrown at me, I succeeded, I failed, and in the end I think I made a real difference. Absolutely it was worth it.

This gives me so much hope...I am currently in the 'there's no possible way I'm going to make any sort of difference, what was I thinking' phase of Peace Corps service.

But to respond to the OP, you can shape any sector into something health related. All volunteers are supposed to incorporate HIV/AIDS work into their service and there is an insane amount of collaboration and interconnectedness between the sectors. For example, health workers and environment workers here can collaborate on gardening projects. Small Enterprise Development volunteers and health volunteers can work together on selling and promoting Moringa powder, a leaf with all essential amino acids that grows quite easily here in West Africa. Teachers can work with health, too, creating clubs that reach out to young girls and teach safe, sexual health practices. Anyone can go and volunteer at a local health center.

I was really concerned with getting placed in a program that would be medically relevant, but once I got here, swore in, and started working, it is definitely obvious that we have enough liberty to shape our service in whatever way is most beneficial to the community and to our goals.

Good luck with your application!

-kid

 

[seunglee]

I was also thinking about doing Peace Corps after my undergraduate studies. How does the application process for med school work? Would you apply before, during or after your Peace Corps service?

 

[shiite7]

I was also thinking about doing Peace Corps after my undergraduate studies. How does the application process for med school work? Would you apply before, during or after your Peace Corps service?

Hi there, I'm going to Lesotho in less than four weeks as a secondary math and science teacher. I took the MCAT in September (scores come out soon!) and my tentative plan is to apply the summer of 2012 (my service should end around Jan 2013/Dec 2012), while abroad. I plan on doing all of my interviews when I come back - Jan/Feb 2013.

If you want, you could apply to med school at the same time as Peace Corps, and if you get accepted into both, you could defer med school to join the Peace Corps (just about every med school will defer for Peace Corps). However, two things to be wary of: one, you do not get the "benefit" of applying to med school with Peace Corps on your resume, so to speak (a huge thing that will naturally be discussed in interviews), and two: the application/acceptance process for Peace Corps can take upwards of a year (for me, it took about 384 days between "nomination" and receiving my invitation in the mail: http://www.scheidtster.com/blog/timeline-of-my-pc-application)

Other people I have spoken with just applied when they came back from Peace Corps, but I think the majority of these people also took their MCAT when they came back as well (most schools only allow 2-3 year old MCATs at the time of application).