Celenia Cano, a senior mathematics major at Cal State Long Beach, will join the Peace Corps and serve in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, shortly after she graduates. Cano said she decided to join the Peace Corps because it was something she wanted to do while she was in community college.
“At the time, I was kind of stuck in a rut, didn’t know what major I wanted to enter, what I wanted to do with my life,” Cano said. “Then it dawned on me maybe these thoughts were selfish, I wanted to feel as if I could be of some help to society.”
Many students like Cano have looked to the Peace Corps as an opportunity to find fulfillment through making a difference in the world around them. CSULB is the No. 3 producer of Peace Corps volunteers in the California State University system and has seen a 43 percent increase in students serving in the Peace Corps within the last year.
“This is significant because the overall number of volunteers in the field has slightly decreased during the same time period, but CSULB’s share has increased,” said Kate Kuykendall, a returned Peace Corps volunteer and current public affairs officer for the Peace Corps in Los Angeles.
There are 30 CSULB students currently serving in 23 posts. In total, 698 CSULB students have served since the program started in 1961.
“I feel I’ll mainly get satisfaction out of this experience,” Cano said. “The satisfaction that I pushed myself and I followed through with my goal, and if I happen to make a small significant difference there will be satisfaction in that as well.”
Applicants are required to apply a year before they leave — it’s a rigorous process but also allows time for preparation.
“It was really difficult,” Cano said. “Everything has to be precise. The health application was the most difficult because I didn’t have insurance and I had to find doctors who wanted to take the time to sit down with me and go through every question.”
According to Kuykendall, the increase in graduate students stems from a generation of more globally minded students.
Kuykendall said universities around the nation are seeing increased interest in the Peace Corps because today’s generation of college students are generally more globally minded and service-oriented than past generations.
“As far as CSULB goes, I think that the university has a long tradition of developing leaders and encouraging work in the community, so Peace Corps is a nice fit with that,” Kuykendall said.
Megan Kelly is a CSULB alumna who served in South Africa from 2007-09 and is now in graduate school at UCLA. While serving, Kelly worked on HIV/AIDS education and community outreach projects in her village.
Kelly said she wanted to volunteer for several reasons.
“I wasn’t ready to go to grad school and I wasn’t ready to enter the workforce,” Kelly said. “I wanted to go because I wanted international experience, especially with a program as renowned as the Peace Corps. I wanted to get outside my comfort zone, challenge myself. I
definitely wanted personal growth. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in life.”
While serving, Kelly had the opportunity to engage with her village.
“Many of the girls would say, ‘Yeah, I’ll have kids at around 16,’ Kelly said. ‘I might get HIV/AIDS and I might die.’ It seemed that way of life was accepted.”
Through this experience, Kelly said she was able to teach a society but also learn from them, she said.
“Some of the kids were very skilled, they taught me a lot,” Kelly said. “It was a cross-culture experience.”
Kelly said the most difficult aspect of serving was trying to spread HIV/AIDS awareness and realizing that the problem has no solution.
“It was difficult trying to run an awareness campaign,” she said. “HIV/AIDS was so prevalent in such a large population, and there was such a stigma attached to it. It was part of their culture not to discuss it. You realize everything is complex; even awareness won’t
really translate.”
Kelly said students often choose to join the Peace Corps because they believe they will change the world, but it isn’t possible to change the world overnight.
“I’m now in grad school at UCLA in nursing, this experience pointed me in this direction, helped me realized what I really want to do with the rest of my life.”
The Peace Corps was founded in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy “challenged students at the University of Michigan to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries.”
Since then, 200,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries working on projects including AIDS education, information technology, and environmental preservation.
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