Students volunteer after graduation

Regardless of their college degree, some graduates are skipping the get-rich quick trend and experiencing a call for something different, work and to serve others.

Organizations such as Teach For America and the Peace Corps allow graduates to be placed in an unfamiliar culture, one that is most often struggling to emerge out of its slumping conditions, to help better the culture's resources.

Auburn graduate Amy Klinner is now in her first year of service with Teach For America. Despite her major in biomedical sciences, Klinner took a different route as she neared her graduation.

"Up until my junior year I had planned on going to medical school and then began to start having doubts," Klinner said. "I decided my faith was more important to me and decided medical school was not in my future. I knew I wanted to do something service oriented before I started my career."

Klinner is just one of many graduates who majored in a field other than education but is now practicing just that, teaching children in an underprivileged area.

Jessica Gasper, a national recruitment director for Teach For America, also had the opportunity to work in the program as a teacher, and afterward she wanted to help keep the program growing. Her work with children who are in need of attention is what she said keeps her motivated.

"Educational inequity is our nation's greatest injustice," Gasper said. "Presently, there are 13 million children growing up in poverty. Only half of these children will ever graduate from high school, many of whom will still be reading at an eighth grade reading level when they do. I wake up every morning with the weight of this reality on my mind."

Teach For America is not the only option for graduates whose aim is to serve.

The Peace Corps is an organization that values community development. Volunteers sign up for a 27 month term and are sent to a country where their skills are best needed. A four-year college degree is not a requirement, but can improve an applicant's chance of acceptance into the program.

According to the peacecorps.gov Web site, the organization calls volunteers from all areas and challenges every aspect of a volunteer's character: "Think of the Peace Corps and you might imagine teaching in a one-room schoolhouse or farming in a remote area of the world. But while education and agriculture are still an important part of what the Peace Corps does, today's Volunteers are just as likely to be working HIV/AIDS awareness, helping establish computer learning centers, or working on small-business development."

Rachel Naftel, a sophomore in political science, has looked into the Peace Corps and has considered it an after-graduation option. However, the readjustment back into her lifestyle after two years is what keeps the program as her plan B.

"If I actually did it I would be scared it would be hard to fit back in once you come back to society," Naftel said. "But right now the economy is so bad, the Peace Corps looks like a perfect way to serve."

So why do it? The Peace Corps provides volunteers with enough pay to live to the standards of the culture they are placed in. And after the Peace Corps, members receive $6,000 to spend as they choose.

With Teach For America, corps members receive a salary equivalent to other teachers' salaries in their district. Some members create a savings account with the left-over earnings for that month to use once members' two-year service ends. But the experience is the main attraction for the volunteers. With these programs they are exposed to different lifestyles while knowing firsthand the difference they are making in the lives of those who are less fortunate.

"Students are compelled by this mission because they know this is a gap that doesn't have to exist, and can be closed through hard work and great training," Gasper said. "Nation wide over 35,000 applicants' applied to become a part of the solution."