Peace Corps: To which country did you volunteer? Can you "choose" the country?

Question

I am minoring in the German language/culture. Will that help me be accepted into the Peace Corps?

Answer 1

It will help a little, since it shows you can learn a foreign language. English, French and Spanish are the most widely-spoken European languages in the third world, though, because England, France and Spain had the largest colonial empires.

I served in Sarawak, Malaysia, many years ago. My daughter is serving in Peru today. You can choose a region, not a specific country. The more flexible you are, the better your chance of getting an invitation.

Almost all of the volunteers who go to Latin America speak Spanish before they go. My daughter did. I didn't speak Malay, Iban or Hokkien before I went.

The official web site is graphics-heavy but comprehensive:

http://www.peacecorps.gov

If you are interested, you can read about my time as a PCV in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo many years ago. I search Y!A for the phrase "Peace Corps" every week. I have a page devoted to the questions that come up the most frequently, too:

http://www.tedpack.org/pchead.html

My page "Peace Corps Links" has a link to the Returned PCV web ring, which has 40+ other RPCV sites.

Answer 2

I volunteered in Morocco, and I actually did choose to go there, but I think the majority of volunteers don't have much say in where they go. (I'll let them answer that though.)

I don't think having German specifically will help you, but the fact that you're good with languages in general will be a plus for you.

Viel Glueck!!

Answer 3

In the PC, there are 7 regions: Central America, South America, Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, North Africa & Middle East, Eastern Europe & Central Asia, and Asia.  During your application process and interview, you'll be asked where you prefer--and what they mean is which region.  In my interview said I was open to all regions except Asia--that I'd love to go to Mongolia or China, but SE Asia I couldn't do because I can't physically keep down the food.  

Many people request a specific region or state preferences for several regions, sometimes people say they really don't want to go to a certain region. However, if people express NO to a region, like I did, it has to be a legit reason and not something like "it isn't pretty enough" or "I don't feel like that one"--but that should be fairly obvious.  Some people might say they prefer Regions X, Y, Z but in the end get placed in Region W simply because that's where their skills fit best. Some people may really drill in "THIS REGION! IT MUST BE" to their recruiter, and sometimes the recruiter will nominate them for that region because they really drove home the fact that they expect their work after the peace corps to deal only with that region, or the recruiter may say "look, your skills are rarely needed in that region but are greatly needed in this other region"

To sum it up, you can request/preference a region. But in the PC they go more by skills than your request. You may have skills suited for that region, but they may also be better suited for another. You may get the region you want (be sure to give legit reasons), but you may get a random region, and it still is entirely possible to get nominated and invited to a region that you specifically requested to NOT be placed in--sometimes that happens, and when it does people either (a) accept it, make the best of it, and end up falling in love with it, or (b) not accept the invitation, and take their chances on waiting for another, but in this case you need very specific legit reasons on why you aren't accepting this invite, otherwise they may not extend another invite to you.

Language can help, in your case, German isn't a language spoken anywhere in the PC I don't think, although it is possible some of the European languages that are spoken are similar to German, if that's the case then it may be taken into account. However, they will see that you have a strength in learning languages and at the very least, that will be taken as a very positive thing.  Spanish and French are the 2 languages the PC really looks for. In my case, I know a tiny bit of french, and near conversational spanish. My original nomination was for francophone-subsaharan africa since I had that little french background. Due to whatever circumstances, my nomination got changed, and since I had a Spanish background too, I'm now nominated for Central/South America in a spanish speaking country. Yet, that's not always the case, I talked to one guy who majored in spanish, but got placed in thailand! He loved thailand, and most likely his skills were just suited more towards what asia needed.

So basically--you can preference your region, maybe even a country, but there is absolutely no guarantee you'll get that region, and especially no guarantee about the country. But from what I've read, feel assured that where ever you end up, you'll love it! You may get the region you want, you may not. You may end up in the region you want, or in one you really don't want. Either way, if the PC is something you really want, you'll end up loving it!

Check out yahoo's group "peacecorps2" it is really helpful--GREAT message board and a great and thorough Files section.

Also, my blog and a lot of links are on it, its http://www.jcorps.blogspot.com