Will,
I recently graduated with an undergraduate degree in Earth Science from a small state school in upstate New York. I have not had a very easy time of finding work in any field related to my degree. I have a special interest in GIS technology and how it is applied in community and urban development. A friend of mine recently mentioned, in vague terms, opportunities that may be available in Peace Corps. After doing some initial research, I stumbled across the work you did in Armenia. I was hoping you could provide me some information and insight as to what the Peace Corps has to over and what to expect. I am at a bit of a crossroads. I am currently employed in insurance but have applied and been accepted to at least one graduate program. The opportunity to both aid developing communities and to enhance my understanding of GIS with an organization like the Peace Corps seems like an exciting opportunity, especially at this point in my life. If you wouldn’t mind giving me some feedback I would be extremely grateful. Thank you so much.
Follow up message
Thanks for the note. Peace Corps a exciting opportunity and I would recommend it if you have targeted task you would like to accomplish. As for GIS it is certainly a morphing and developing field that seems to be moving forward in leaps here and there across the globe, so it really depends on where you go and the development project cycle
there….. See if the grad program could enter into has something like the Peace Corps master’s international so you can be get academic advice and review while doing your project over seas….see how they do it in Michigan State, http://www.aec.msu.edu/grad/MSU.Peace_Corps_MI_Program.pdf ……….it would of really helped if I was working toward a degree, I happened to link up with guy with a PHD in international development while in the country and he gave me some time and advice, unfortunately that’s a rare thing. The Peace Corps programing is really a mixed bag when you want to get more specialized and further from the English education programs, they haven’t had the vision to develop good international development technology into the programming. Hope that helps,
Cheers,
Will
