Footprints Recruiting

by Cara Fitzpatrick - www.carafitzpatrick.com

NEW YORK - Julia Barke had just arrived in the African nation of Mali, where she was volunteering with the Peace Corps, when a group of women encircled her mud hut and began singing and dancing.

"I thought, here I am in the middle of West Africa,'' said Barke, a 27-year-old Atlanta native. "Oh, my God.''

Like Barke, a growing number of Americans in their 20s are spending one or two years working or volunteering overseas after graduating from college. Many yearn to travel while they still are unencumbered by mortgages or family responsibilities. Others hope to make a meaningful difference abroad.

They face the skepticism of family and friends, looming credit card bills or student loans, foreign food, strange diseases, cultural barriers and even occasional danger. But most say they gained more direction in their careers and had the best experience of their lives.

Although the trend is difficult to track, applications to international volunteer and work organizations, such as the Peace Corps or Cross Cultural Solutions, have risen significantly in the past five to 10 years.

Last year, the Peace Corps sent 7,810 volunteers overseas - its highest number since 1974. Of those volunteers, the average age was 28. And 96 percent had undergraduate degrees.

Cross Cultural Solutions is a nonprofit organization in New Rochelle, N.Y., that has short-term volunteer programs in more than 10 countries. Half of its volunteers are either college students or graduates. The number of participants increased 50 percent in 2003, and enrollment already is about 30 percent above the goals set for 2006, said Kam Santos, a spokeswoman for the organization.

"There's no doubt it's growing,'' she said. "We're just amazed by the numbers we've seen.''

Santos attributed some of the growth in overseas programs to a greater awareness among young people that their lives may be shaped by events thousands of miles away, such as the Asian tsunami or the Iraq war.

"There are a lot of things happening in the world, and people are more aware of how global issues really become local issues,'' she said. "People feel like they need to make a contribution.''

Many students who studied abroad during college look for internships or jobs overseas. Barke, who graduated from Georgia Tech with a bachelor's degree in international affairs, studied in Germany twice as an undergraduate before accepting a yearlong marketing internship at a German newspaper after college.

The job was not quite what she wanted, so she began looking into the Peace Corps.

"I was looking for something that made me feel excited, that I really felt passionate about doing,'' she said.

Although the Peace Corps is one of the most recognizable of overseas programs, there are a variety of volunteer or work opportunities, as diverse as laboring on an organic farm in South America and teaching English in Europe or Asia.

The most popular jobs are the English teaching positions because they offer more livable wages, said Bill Nolting, the director of the University of Michigan's Overseas Opportunities Office. Teaching salaries depend upon the wealth of the host country and can range from $100 to $2,800 a month.

"Many students are interested in getting professional experience and money, and that can be a tall order,'' Nolting said.

Jeannette Zimmer, a 26-year-old graduate of the University of Nebraska, applied to the Japan Exchange and Teach program because she wanted to spend a couple of years in a country and not go into debt in the process. She made a little more than $30,000 a year and had a housing stipend. At the end of her stay in Japan, Zimmer used some of her savings to travel for seven weeks in India, Thailand and France.

"It was a really good deal,'' she said. "I wanted to see Asia and I wanted to travel, but I also didn't want to go into debt.''

Lucia Novara, 23, and her boyfriend, Craig Harcek, 26, taught English in China's poorest province for a year after graduating from Michigan State University.

Combined, their salary was $1,200 a month. In China, that paid for travel, good food and a comfortable place to live. The two paid off her credit cards, his car loan and some of her student loans.

Cultural differences, strange food and diseases can complicate journeys abroad. Before going to Japan, Zimmer spent her junior year in Tanzania, where she got typhoid and malaria. When Barke got back to the United States, she tested positive for tuberculosis.

advertisement Novara, who had traveled extensively in Europe and Australia, felt immense culture shock in China.

"There was culture shock, but I think the difference is in China it never wears off,'' she said.

Yet they all said they never regretted the decision to go abroad after college. Their experiences had helped them handle the pressures of graduate school and professional careers, they said.

Novara now has a public relations job in Denver, where her boyfriend works in environmental science. Zimmer has since moved to Seattle, where she works in a pharmacy and has plans to apply to pharmacy schools in the fall.

"People who went straight through to pharmacy school may be farther along in their career, but I feel like I'm better prepared to really commit to school and a career.''

For Barke, who started law school at Columbia this year, the real challenge may be readjusting to life in the United States.

"I'm sleeping four hours a night, I'm reading all the time, I order everything, even my groceries, online because I don't have any time,'' she said. "Sometimes I think this is worse than the mud hut.''

Cara Fitzpatrick is a master's candidate at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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