Old Vs. New

Holy cow! I'm reading blogs about the application and invitation process from past years and I am very grateful to be among the new applicants. It looks like it took FOREVER! It seems that when you applied you were part of a nomination group who could possibly leave in the next two years. You first had to pass the background check and then many rounds of medical clearance, all with no indication of where you might serve or what you might do. That part could take many months. After getting through medical clearance your qualifications were reviewed and you might be scheduled for an interview. You were discouraged from having an opinion on where you would serve. After the interview you might be invited to serve in a region but still with no idea of which country or what you would be doing. Eventually they would snail mail you an invitation with your country and assignment. Still subject to change.

There is a certain excitement to the process I imagine. And perhaps time honored tradition and the comfort of knowing that many other PCVs when through the same thing. But I think I still prefer the new system.

The new application takes about thirty minutes. You are asked a few initial questions: do you have dependents? Have you filed for bankruptcy? Are you related to anyone working in the intelligence field? And so on. Probably less then 15 questions. Then you submit a motivational statement, reference info, resume, and sign some agreements. That's pretty much all I remember from the application. Very shortly after I received a medical history form to fill out and submit online. This was very detailed. A day after that I received an email saying I was medically precleared to serve in any country and a form asked where I wanted to be placed and what I wanted to do.

I selected that I would serve anywhere and do anything but my preference was for Africa (I also correctly assumed I would most like be considered for education or youth development programs). In the new system you are encouraged to make your preferences known, unlike the past where any hint that you might prefer one way or another was seen as inflexibility and thought poorly of. In retrospect maybe I should have asked for a specific assignment but I feel confident that I would find any of them worthwhile.

Within days of submitting my preference form I received an email saying that I was being considered for placement in the education sector in Sierra Leone. Any indication of where you were going seemed to be among the last things to happen in the old system. The interview was scheduled using a handy internet site. The interview itself seems to be more extensive. It seems that past interview could be as short as thirty minutes. They made up for the lack of information in the initial application by having a two hour interview that sussed out every qualification and deficit you might have. It was also very informative and a surprisingly enjoyable process. I believe they are trying to be more transparent with applicants. Or else my placement officer has great communication skills.

After the interview I uploaded a few documents (transcripts, TEFL cert.) and completed a skills assessment form about my former teaching experience. I feel as though I should have been much more detailed when completing the form. Oh well.

I do wonder if some of the speed at which this happened has to do with the placement site being Sierra Leone. It is in quite a rough situation right now and has always seemed to be considered one of the most traditional and "hardcore" of the Peace Corps assignments.

I still have to go through the hellish medical clearance process, and I am very worried about timing. Despite what seem to be assurances that I will be invited to this program, actual invitations won't be made for some time, possibly as late as December. My problem is that I will be in Shanghai from November until March (about two months before Sierra Leone's departure date) and I will have to do all of my medical clearance abroad or in the last few weeks before departure. Sounds like potential for things to go terribly wrong. Particularly if my wisdom teeth need to come out!

My other concern is Sierra Leone's current status. PCVs and PCTs were evacuated a few months ago and have not been allowed to return. The Salone 5 group never even started their service. What will happen to them? I've become very attached to the idea of Sierra Leone over the past month but I have been warned that we might be told at the last possible minute that the program will remain on hold. I have also been told that if that happens I will have the chance to pick another assignment and country that departs around the same time. I am grateful for this, since not everyone will be so lucky. Some people will have to resubmit their entire application and go through this process again if Sierra Leone remains on hold.

More about the alternatives later.

The 4am Decision

So my application was submitted. I scheduled my interview for August 25th, 2015 and I was obsessively preparing for it.  I tried reading everything I could find on the interview process, but I was among the first applicants to go through the new interview. So this is how it went:

On August 4th, not two weeks after submitting my application, I received a response from the Peace Corps. It said they had reviewed my qualifications (master's degree, one year teaching abroad, TEFL) and my preferences (working with youth in Africa) and that I had been placed under consideration for an Education Assignment in Sierra Leone. The email included a link about the Ebola situation in West Africa, but no other real information.

On August 14th I received an email requesting that I choose an interview time. I selected August 25th but this all seemed very sudden. I was still expecting this to be like the older, longer process and considering that I didn't plan to leave before 2016 I though this was all moving very quickly.

Turned out that it was.

I started my interview with the placement officer in charge of my application at 11pm Seoul time after a long day of work. My interviewer was great. He was funny and interesting and put me at ease as we went through the pre-scripted interview questions (most of which can be found HERE). About 45 minutes into the interview we both realized that something was wrong. I was talking about my plans to teach in Shanghai during the year before my Peace Corps service in 2016. He was interviewing me for a position that departed in June, 2015. There were still a few kinks left in the new system. The interview came to a halt. He told me I was a very competitive applicant, that he really wanted me involved in this project in Sierra Leone, and asked me to consider changing my plans if I could. We agreed to speak in a week.

A week later I had packed up my life in South Korea, boarded a plane, and arrived back in my hometown in Florida. I woke up at 4am the day after I arrived and emailed the Peace Corps. I would leave a year early for the opportunity to fulfill this childhood dream.

I went ahead and finished my interview. I felt pretty confident about it, though I can't continue in the process until I have received the official invitation. I have become very attached to the idea of Sierra Leone though, and there is no clear evidence that the program will be up and running any time soon. News about the Ebola outbreak only seems to get worse, with no clear end in sight. In the mean time I will hope, and wait, and prepare as best I can.

Application

I had been in awe of the Peace Corps since childhood. It was an amazing thing that only amazing people did. I was desperately interested but couldn't fully imagine myself among the Peace Corp elite as much as I talked about it with high school friends, then college friends, then grad school friends. Then I moved to South Korea and it no longer seemed so unattainable. I could move across the world and survive. I could be a good teacher. I enjoyed travelling. I could be the stuff Peace Corps volunteers were made of.

I started an application to serve in the Peace Corps about five months after I moved to South Korea to teach. I finished the entire thing, entered my reference information, wrote the essays. The whole thing was done. But I held off submitting it. I told myself it was too early to decide. The process took too long, I didn't know what I would be doing a year in the future. I waited so long the application was deleted. But I didn't stop thinking about the Peace Corps. During my last months in South Korea I had few doubts. The Peace Corp was what I wanted to do. If it took so damn long I would just have to apply ridiculously early and find something to fill my time. The trick was the application process had changed by then.

I am under the impression that mine is among the first of the new applications to go through the shortened process. President Obama and the Peace Corps decided to overhaul the system to make it easier and more attractive for young people to apply. The year long process of applying was shortened to about six months. I found out that the year I had planned into the application process was no longer necessary. I had planned to leave for Peace Corps service at the beginning of 2016 but things don't always turn out the way we planned.

I submitted by application on July 22, 2014 and very shortly was asked to schedule an interview to discuss an education position in Sierra Leone. I was on my way!

Why?

I've started this blog, one of many attempts over the years, because I have found myself repeating over and over "I wish I were able to write a blog like this". I started an ill-fated blog about my efforts to become a runner. I started an even more unsuccessful blog to chronicle my time in South Korea. Well, now's the time to try again.

I've spent the past few months obsessively reading Peace Corps blogs. I wanted to know everything about their experiences. How did they navigate the process of applying? What happened after they received their invitations? What really went on in Pre-Service Training? What did they DO day-to-day? Hundreds of little questions. I combed out hints on how to survive, how to make the best of my time in service, and reasons why some volunteers didn't make it until the end of service. I am hoping to use their experience as a guide, and it is my hope that a future generation of Peace Corps Volunteers will stumbled across my blog and do the same.

I should mention that at this point I am only in the very early stages of the process. There is no guarantee that I will even make it overseas. There are still many road blocks to get over and hopefully I will magically become a good blogger (or even a mediocre one) and chronicle all of them.

Lets get started!