So figured that I the application process is quite extensive I'd like to just provide you all with a bit of the information about how my experience developed, and the amount of time and things you may encounter.
Below is a quick run down of my Peace Corps Application time line. The entire process took little under a year from submission of application to hopping onto a plane to Quito, Ecuador.
My process was a bit different because for majority of it I was living in Quetzaltenango, Guatemalan through the University of Southern California's Somos Hermanos Student Immersion Program. For all you pre-med students out there I high suggest checking it out. It was an incredible life changing program. Here is the link:
Somos Hermanos
Below the time line, I have added my essays for my application to provide you with a better well-rounded view of my perspectives during the entire process. The initial online application takes roughly 2-weeks to complete, but you can take your time. I highly suggest anticipating at least 8 months between your application submission, and actually leaving for a position (if your selected).
July 2010
-Submitted Online Application
-Moved to Guatemala for University of Southern Califonira's Somos Hermanos Student Immersion Program, http://www.somoshermanos.org/home
-Request for Supplemental information
August 2010
-Life in Guatemala "Incredible y muy diferente a los Estados Unidos"
-Praying my documents make it from the US to Guatemala without being lost in their mail system--> Stress
-Contacting literally everyone where it might be possible to have fingerprints done
-Moment Standing in a Guatemalan prison in Xela to have fingerprints done--> one of the most ridiculous moments ever
-Traveling to Oaxaca, Mexico
September 2010
-Informed my application materials might be late since Guatemala was having massive landslides
-Using DHL to mail my forms praying my identity doesn't get stolen by the mail system "losing" my paperwork
-Application Suspended and then Reactivated--> Deep Breath and Exercise patience :)
-Learning that things run a bit slower in developing countries--> roll with the punches
October 2010
-Interview via Peace Corps like Skype System
-Despite buying a suit and getting dressed up, the video does not work :( remember to be flexible
November 2010
-Nomination for Subsaharan Africa but gets filled
-Waiting
- Guatemalan Gringo Thanksgiving--which we all ended up getting parasites. Parasites: 7, Sean: 0
December 2010
-Nomination for Position in Community Health HIV/AIDS in Central/South America
-Acceptance of Nomination
-Return to PA from Guatemala
-Health Packet Completion
January 2011
-Waiting
-Readjusting to the States
February 2011
-Waiting
-Volunteering in local clinics
-living at home
-Applying to Secondary Programs: GHC, Teach in Spain,
March 2011
- Month Trip to Ecuador to practice spanish and act adventurous living on $20 a day with one backpack
-Invitation- Ironically Peace Corps Ecuador
April 2012
- Invitation Packet
-Return to PA
May 2012
- My 23rd Birthday
-Preparing for Ecuador
Essay 1
Many discover their desire to become a Peace Corps volunteer in their 20s or in the later chapters of their lives. However, my interest in becoming a volunteer was sparked as a child by my father who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Columbia. From teaching orphans to learning Spanish, my father’s stories exhibited the positive life changing impact the Peace Corps had upon his life.
These stories fostered my ambition to obtain an understanding of cultures around the world. In my junior year of college, I embarked on my own 6 month study abroad experience in Australia. Living in the International House located at University of Queensland provided me the amazing opportunity to genuinely connect with people internationally. Traveling throughout Australia and New Zealand taught me that much of the world is as curious about American culture as I am of theirs. Although many communication barriers existed, an honest smile, a good sense of humor and a desire to understand each other built a sufficient bridge. The experience revealed to me that I wanted to make engaging and learning about people from different cultures an integral part of my life.
My father’s tales emphasized the importance of challenging oneself to leave one’s comfort zone and uphold compassion in order to improve one’s community. Under these principles I made the independent choice to pursue becoming the first physician in my family’s history. Beyond the rigorous studies as a pre-med Biology major, volunteerism has been a major part of my college career. As the Philanthropy and Community Service Chair of my fraternity, I gained critical exposure to organizing and leading large groups in efforts to aid the local community through fundraising concerts or planting 36 trees in center city Allentown. I have learned that leading by example and fostering teamwork is essential to implementing community improvements. Devoting time and energy to improve the lives of my community was rewarding beyond anything else I have experienced.
These volunteer experiences coupled with my internship exposure revealed how critical basic healthcare education is to improving communities. I have strived to combine my love of cultural immersion with fascination of medicine by participating in Somos Hermanos, a six month medically focused language and cultural immersion program located in Guatemala this fall. This experience will develop my understanding of medical Spanish necessary in order to volunteer in Spanish countries needing basic health knowledge.
The support of family has been a critical factor in providing me the necessary character to turn my dreams into reality. I know that spending 27 months apart will be that hardest commitment of Peace Corps for us to fulfill. However, my family is proud and supportive that I wish to become the narrator of my own life story using my father’s ideologies as my foundation. In my mind, the Peace Corps is the next essential step to becoming a caregiver, and will allow me to demonstrate that Americans can be culturally competent medical professionals. If selected, I know the cultural understanding I will develop will be essential to my future career as a healthcare provider, while also fulfilling my childhood aspirations.
Essay 2
It is only through the development of trust and confidence that we are able to integrate ourselves into the lives of the people that surround us. Daily we all encounter this challenge, however there are times that we must exit our comfort zones to establish genuine links between ourselves and other people. It is these experiences that establish our character and abilities to connect with others. The International House (IH) of University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia is where I first encountered such an experience.
While studying abroad in Australia during my junior year of college I quickly found that Australia was a land culturally and geographically different than my home in rural Pennsylvania. English was the primary language, but was so heavily abbreviated and intertwined with slang that many times I had no idea what people were saying. This required me to develop the use of body language as a means of communication. Living at IH was a cultural sphere unlike anything I had ever experienced. When I arrived at IH the only students present were native Australians and students from Asia who could not afford to travel home for break. It was my first experience in which abridged English and Mandarin were primarily heard. There was a visible separation between cultures which posed a challenging living dynamic.
I went abroad to diversify my perspective of the world by seeing and understanding the paths other students took to bring them to the same location as myself. Initially, I was unsure how to bridge connections with the diversity of students living at IH. Quickly, I recognized that the dining hall provided the best opportunity to meet others. Maintaining an open mind, I planted myself in the dining hall and with newspaper in hand I plunged into conversation. With a hand extended and a smile on my face, I politely asked those eating if I could sit and chat with them. It was this simple gesture coupled with a friendly attitude that allowed me to connect with people from every corner of the planet. People were as curious to learn about my small mountainous hometown of Jim Thorpe and the journey that led me to Australia as I was to hear of theirs.
As classes started, students from every country imaginable lived at IH and many of these students became trusted travel companions, teammates in IH sports, and lifelong friends. Although majority of us were from completely different backgrounds, we are all integral parts of each other’s lives to this date. I learned how to integrate myself into an international community. This experience revealed that the key to building trust and confidence with the people I meet includes maintaining an open mind, placing oneself in a position of vulnerability, and continually presenting an eagerness to learn about their culture. I believe that a Peace Corps volunteer must step out of their comfort zone to succeed. I trust that my experience learning to assimilate into an unfamiliar community in Australia provided me with the necessary skills to serve as a future Peace Corps volunteer.
A:
Throughout my coming Peace Corps journey, I expect to be challenged on levels unlike any previous experiences. I expect to live through moments of varying emotions, understandings, misunderstands which will all round my experience of learning more about HIV/AIDS, the world, Ecuador, and myself. I am extremely excited to learn and implement the skills necessary to facilitate and develop a cooperative community movement in HIV/AIDS prevention through education. Through my experiences in Guatemala and Ecuador, I have learned that opportunity to accessible education in regards to important health issues more often than not are nonexistent in developing countries. I am extremely excited to be a part of increasing that accessibility to such health knowledge and I expect this experience to evolve my understanding of the world and myself.
Having recently graduated with a degree in biology on a pre-medical track, I have had many experiences volunteering in healthcare settings and developing my understanding as to what are the necessities of becoming a caregiver. The first essential attribute I believe will aid me in my coming position as a HIV/AIDS Prevention educator will be patience. My experiences volunteering in ERs, healthcare clinics, shadowing physicians, and teaching sexual education in rural communities in Guatemala have shown me that teaching people about how to best approach caring for their own health takes time. There are many pre-conceived notions and stigmas that many people hold, and building trust and confidence in the knowledge that you present to others is a long term process. I believe my experiences have developed my patience and understanding that such tasks take time and results will not occur over night.
The second essential attribute I believe I will bring to the position is diligence. Long term projects require being persistent even without instant results. I believe that my career as an undergraduate pre-med student has developed my work ethic, and desire to stick to long term goals, but also maintain the necessary flexibility to respond to majority of situations. Furthermore, I believe I have had considerable experience in team based situations ranging from academic group projects, being an active member of tennis and soccer teams, to being the philanthropy/community service chair of my college fraternity. These experiences have taught me big tasks rarely can be accomplished by one person, and more often than not people need to learn to work as a team. I think I have developed the attitude necessary to meet and develop strong connections with new people, and find ways to make working together enjoyable.
From all of these experiences, I believe there are two more attributes that will serve me well as my time as Peace Corps volunteer. Those attributes are my listening skills and my sense of humor. I have found that taking the time to really listen to someone’s story or experience, is the first step to building strong connections with people. The act of listening displays that you care about and value what that individual’s journey through life has been. In my mind, that is essential for any position in healthcare. Finally, I have found that maintaining a good sense of humor allows me to tackle almost any situation. My experiences have shown me the ability to laugh about and cherish the little things in life is what makes the memorable moments in our lives. These are the attributes that I believe will allow me to successfully connect and work with my future community.
In terms of my aspirations during my Peace Corps service, I strive to maintain an idealistic, yet realistic approach in what my experience may entail. I hope to gain a better understanding of the Ecuadorian lifestyle and mainly, understand the journey, hardships, history, joys and aspirations that comprise the people of the community I will be living with. I also hope to impart to my future community members an understanding of my journey through life with the hopes of developing an understanding of the nature of growing up in the United States.
Furthermore, I hope to learn more about the HIV/AIDS pandemic, while increasing the access to valuable health knowledge in preventing its spread. I hope to share in the hardships, joys, and variable experiences that arise in teaching about important health topics in developing areas of Ecuador. Finally, I hope through this partnership to build lasting relationships with the Ecuadorians of my community, and provide them with the knowledge base necessary to help them continue their community efforts after my service.
B:
I believe that in order work effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs is going to require a combination of patience, flexibility, effective networking, and receptive listening to the needs of the local community. I believe time is necessary to become a trust and valued member of the community and collaboration of workers involved in the community health program. Throughout all of my past volunteer position, making oneself open minded, eager to help and approachable is essential. In consideration to sexual and reproductive health, topics that can carry many stigmas and challenges to overcome, patience will be a necessity in understanding that building trust with community members will be a long process. During the process of building trust with co-workers and the community, being as flexible as possible and providing as much help as possible in all aspects of the program will aid in building that trust and confidence necessary for my perspectives and knowledge to be implemented. Flexibility will also be necessary in changing my pre-conceived ideas of what manner is most effective for aiding the community. All of which will be based upon effective networking with community members, and listening to the actual needs of my community. In this manner, the only way to truly integrate with the community to provide my insight will depend on maintaining those four strategies.
C:
I believe that my experiences of living in Australia for six months, Guatemala for six months, and visiting Ecuador for close to one month have provided me the experience necessary to understand to effectively adapt to new cultures. For me, I know this means being extremely flexible, friendly, humble, patient and continually displaying the yearning to listen, learn and interact with the people of that culture. Typically, I try to read as much about the history and known cultural customs as I can before reaching any new location, however, I often learn the greatest lessons about culture just through interacting with the people that comprise it.
I have found that people normally recognize when someone has a positive attitude and genuine desire to understand and value the intricacies of another’s culture. My short time traveling through Ecuador, I found Ecuadorians to be incredibly friendly, open-minded, and humble people. I learned much just by starting conversations with taxi drivers, people on buses, and practicing my developing Spanish abilities whenever applicable. I have also found that many people are as curious about understanding what my life in America has been like, as much as I am curious about the journey they have taken. I believe that by maintaining an open-mind, a sense of adventure, a good sense of humor, and the desire to learn and experience cross-cultural interchange of ideas will help me effectively adapt to the culture in Ecuador.
D:
During the pre-service training, I hope to gain the knowledge necessary to properly and effectively teach HIV/AIDS prevention knowledge as well as other necessary preventative health knowledge. My experiences volunteering as a sexual health teacher in a rural Guatemala community for close to 2 months was very informal in the fact that majority of the knowledge I taught to my students was based upon my own research in books and online. The experience was very much based upon trial and error without advanced training in the methodology of how to teach such subjects.
Furthermore, I hope to improve my Spanish skills as well as learn Kichwa during the language intensive portion of pre-service training. I felt that during my time in Ecuador during this past March, I had a great opportunity to practice having conversations with many people from different regions of Ecuador. I have come to truly enjoy speaking Spanish, and would love to increase my abilities to effectively converse over more in-depth topics.
Additionally, I hope to gain a better understanding of the Ecuadorian culture and taboos as well as how the health care system functions in Ecuador on urban and small community levels. I would love to also learn what measures have been effective in HIV/AIDS prevention education as well as how to integrate other important aspects of health education into this project. I feel that this knowledge will be crucial in understanding and integrating into my future community and working effectively in their current dynamic.
E:
I believe that my time as a Peace Corps volunteer will influence both my personal and professional aspirations greatly. Personally, I believe that my time in service will provide me with a greater understanding of the world which we all live in, and specifically the situations Ecuadorians must live through daily. I believe the experience will also provide the opportunity for personal growth through attempting to successful integrate and make lifelong friends with the people of my community, and provide them with knowledge they can use to help their future generations. I will be pushed out of my comfort zones, and from that, learn the necessities to be prepared for all situations life may bring my way.
In respects to my professional goals, my time as a volunteer will strengthen my strong resolve to eventually become a physician. In my mind, the experience will provide me a better understanding of people from other cultures, specifically Latin America, and further develop my interpersonal skills with people from different backgrounds. Along those lines, the Spanish speaking population in the United States is growing, but the level of care providers with bilingual capabilities is not rising as fast. This has led to inequalities in healthcare for the Latino population in the United States. I believe my experience through the Peace Corps will better prepare me for a career as a culturally competent and compassionate healthcare provider.
Furthermore, the time living and working in Ecuador in preventative health care education will provide me the experiential base and confidence necessary to understand a career in global health. This understanding will allow me to become a part of larger global health initiatives. Through of these experiences, I believe I will be better suited to forge a genuine connection with people in my future career as a healthcare provider. Finally, I know my Peace Corps experience in Ecuador will allow me the opportunity examine and alter the principles that will carry me through both my future professional and personal life.
