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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   742 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 2026

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Has anybody ever joined the peace corps or a similar organization? I'm in my mid 20s realizing that I probably need to stretch myself in ways that would both improve my character and make me a more viable candidate for a good grad school. Not to mention that I'm interested in the US foreign service, and that peace corps is a fairly common pipeline to that. My main concern, beyond getting some weird disease or dying in a war zone, is that the experience will be a waste, and that I'll have to follow dumb rules about where I can and can't travel. Also, I wouldn't be making a lot of money and there are few ways to get around that without being discovered.

Yes.

I had no intention of joining the US foreign service, and don't know anything about that part.

The experience itself was mixed. I enjoyed Teach and Learn with Georgia, a locally run Peace Corps shaped knock off, a lot more, but I think things vary a lot by location and gender. My main issue was that we weren't given enough work, in the hopes that we would exhibit agency to do other things that make America look good. But, also, many cultures the Peace Corps operates in expect, and indeed enforce, low female agency. So I was paired up with someone I didn't really work well with, with no other visible options for useful ways to contribute, and then had to leave early. In retrospect, I was acting pretty depressed, and my skills were mostly going unused. I was especially surprised that my English and teaching skills were largely unused in an English teaching position, despite being an actual career teacher, and the I couldn't figure out how to remedy that.

My male colleges seemed to have, in general, a better experience.

I'll have to follow dumb rules about where I can and can't travel.

Yes, more than other volunteer abroad situations.

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