After two years at Hickory Chair, Heather Wall applied to the Peace Corps and was sent to Zambia
Working for the World: Recent graduates struggle with choosing to enter work force or join the Peace Corps
By Mary Giunca
JOURNAL REPORTER
[Excerpt]
As graduation approached, Heather Wall said she was torn by two impulses: to go into the Peace Corps or to put her interior-design degree from Salem College to work.
"We just spent all this money on an education," she said, remembering how she weighed the decision, "so I've got an offer for something I've spent four years getting a degree in."
For Wall, 26, the decision to go into the working world won out - at least for two years. In 2000, she became one of the youngest sales reps in the Hickory Chair Co.'s history.
But the Peace Corps wouldn't go away.
"There was this nagging thought at the back of my mind that I wasn't dong this thing I'd always wanted to do," she said.
Wall's story illustrates the problem many college students face in a country whose work ethic is famous throughout the world, but one in which the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have renewed a sense of service and a desire to understand how the rest of the world lives.
The humanitarian impulse is thriving on college campuses, said Bill Currin, Wake Forest University's director of career services.
"These are students who have a global view, and they want to make a difference," Currin said.
For fiscal year 2001 (which ended Sept. 30), 5,579 people in their 20s applied to the Peace Corps. By 2002, the number of applications from people in their 20s had risen to 6,936. In 2004, that number reached 9,951. More Americans are serving in the Peace Corps now than in the past 29 years, said Jennifer Borgen with the Peace Corps.
This year Wake Forest University made the Top 25 list of small schools who send graduates into the Peace Corps. The school is ranked No. 22, with 17 alumni currently serving as volunteers.
Since the Peace Corps began in 1961, 153 Wake Forest alumni have served.
That record is the result of what Betsy Taylor, the director of the Pro Humanitate Center, calls "a culture of service."
The center was established with a $1.9 million Lilly Endowment grant in the summer of 2002. The center coordinates service trips to the Third World, sponsors retreats and acts as a clearinghouse for information on service internships, grants and fellowships.
After two years at Hickory Chair, Wall applied to the Peace Corps and was sent to Zambia.
As the daughter of a Methodist minister, Wall said that she was raised with the idea of serving others. The decision to serve isn't easy for everyone, she said.
"I feel like a lot of my friends are under pressure to achieve these items," she said. "I have friends my age who are moving into 3,500-square-foot homes, buying these cars and moving into second homes. When they see someone else achieving more, it makes them angry."
Wall said that now that she is back home, she sometimes worries that her Peace Corps experience causes employers to look at her differently from other recent graduates.
"I feel that my Peace Corps experience hurts me professionally," she said. "When companies look at my resume, it throws them off. They don't know what my direction is. They fear that I might go off somewhere else."
Yet, she doesn't regret the experience.
"I have these things that I feel passionate about," she said, "but when I look at my time in the Peace Corps, even when I struggled there was always a purpose there."
• Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com
