I am currently a rising senior Business Management major at my university. I am very interested in considering the possiblity of joining the Peace Corps.

Do you have any advice in terms of preparing for the application process, the term of service and the readjustment process afterwards? I am extremely nervous about the readjustment part because I feel that I would be behind my business-minded peers when I return (which might hurt my chances of getting a job later on). Any other advice would be helpful as well.

Thanks!

Yes, you can apply during your last year of college. I did it and it worked out great. Since the application process takes so long it actually worked out for me to leave for Peace Corps about 3 months after graduation. I think you just have to show that you’re in good standing with the school and tell them your expected graduation date.

Can you apply to be a peace corp volunteer during your last yr of 4yr college? Does the peace corp require you to apply after you get the degree?

Thank you so much for your time!

You are not allowed to choose a specific country to volunteer in, but you can tell your interviewer which region (Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, etc) you would prefer. That does not guarantee that you will go to that region but I think they try to take that info into account when they choose your placement. They also place you in a program (teaching English, health, agriculture, youth, etc) that is hopefully related to experience that you’ve had. You get what is called a nomination that includes a country and a program and you can either accept or decline that nomination, though if you decline there is no guarantee that you will get another nomination (or at least another one soon). Once you accept the nomination you become an invitee and they will send you all the info you need for your country and program. Before you leave the United States all of the volunteers that are going to your Peace Corps country at that time will have an orientation and then all fly to your PC country together. Staff in that country will then pick you up at the airport. In my experience (and I cannot guarantee that all PC offices are like this), after they picked us up from the airport we stayed in a hotel for 4 days and went through a short cultural and language orientation. Then we were dropped off with the host families that we’d be living with during training. For 3 months you live with those families and go to language, cultural, and program classes. At the end of the 3 months you are sworn in as volunteers and move to your site placement. Your program manager interviews you during the training period to figure out what kind of place you would prefer to live in (city vs country, near lots of volunteers or not, etc). They also try to take this into account when selecting your site. I was placed in a site about 5 hours by bus from the capital city. For the first 4 months of service (which is different from training) I lived with another host family in my new community. Then I was allowed to move out and live on my own. This varies greatly from country to country. In order for a school or organization to get a PC volunteer they must have a counterpart for the volunteer to work with. My counterpart happened to be an English teacher and he helped me acclimate to my new community and life. When I lived with host families they fed me and by the time I moved out on my own I had enough language skills to find my own food, household supplies, and transportation. Each volunteer receives a stipend that is supposed to be comparable to the living standard of other people in your community. In my case that money was deposited into a bank account and I could access it from the ATM in the center of my town. I found the stipend was enough to live on and did not have problems living within my means. If I needed work related help I could always call my program manager for advice and there was also a library in the main office that had tons of materials that I could use. There was also two doctors that I could call at any time if I had medical questions or needed medicine and there was a safety adviser that I could call if I needed help.

I hope I answered your questions. Please let me know if you have any more.

How did you end up in the town you were in (my impression is that you chose a country and described your interests and someone at the PC office helped match you up with a community that expressed a need?)?

What was its like when you first arrived? How did you get settled there? What resources did you have to help you find a place to live and how did you find the resources you needed (like food, household supplies, transportation, in addition to what you needed for your mission)?

I believe their office is in Maputo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-lau/what-the-peace-corp-taugh_b_1099202.html

I’ll be graduating as a Marketing Major.

What are your thoughts on that? I also speak Russian, but would rather get a Spanish Speaking country, any advise on that?