Well-known volunteer-based organizations Teach for America (TFA) and the Peace Corps both received?and accepted?considerable numbers of applications from Bowdoin seniors this year.
In the 2007-2008 academic year, the Peace Corps received 12 applications from Bowdoin students, said Public Affairs Specialist for the New England Peace Corps office Joanna O'Brien. David Nachtweih, communications associate for TFA, said that 34 students from the Class of 2008 had applied to the program during the year?a 41 percent spike from last year's crop of applicants.
So far, TFA has accepted 13 Bowdoin students, and that number could rise. Students who applied during the fourth and final deadline are still waiting to hear from the program.
According to Nachtweih, many Bowdoin students who joined TFA this year are headed to the California Bay Area, Denver, or Chicago.
According to O'Brien, 14 Bowdoin alumni are currently serving in the Peace Corps?which earned the College a 24th place ranking among small schools earlier this year.
Peace Corps volunteers are given housing and a small stipend for food, as well as funds upon completion of their tour.
Oliver Cunningham '08 was admitted to the Peace Corps in early March, and is now in the middle of a medical screening process. Cunningham said that once he passes his screening, he will be stationed in a Latin American country and will focus on environmental education.
Cunningham said he considered both TFA and the Peace Corps, but ultimately chose the Peace Corps.
"The idea [of the Peace Corps] is that you integrate yourself into the community that you're living in. One way or another, they sort of become your family for two years."
Avery Forbes '08 said TFA recruited her after a mentoring program she works with at Bowdoin gave TFA her name. Forbes, who said that the Career Planning Center steered her in the direction of TFA, will work on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota where she will teach art.
"You're in a really natural setting there," she said. "Someone told me you have to drive through a sunflower field to get to the reservation. I will be learning about the culture and being in a really beautiful place."
An interdisciplinary Visual Art and Art History major at Bowdoin, Forbes said she hopes to work in education in museums, but may consider teaching if she feels a strong pull toward the career after she finishes her work with TFA.
Debbie Theodore '08, who will serve in the Peace Corps in Jordan, will partake in a language immersion program in the capital of Amman before relocating to a rural community.
"It will be really neat to live in the Middle East and to get a sense of what living in a Muslim country is like, since most of my perceptions of that are probably off," Theodore said.
Jessie Ferguson '08, who will work in early childhood development for TFA in the California Bay Area, said she was drawn to the program because of its mission to narrow the achievement gap.
"Because I am from the Bay Area originally and went to public school, I know what the education system there is like," she said. "It seems like a really good way to give back for a few years."
Ferguson plans to enter law school after working for TFA, but said she is open to the possibility of the program altering her career path.
Theodore also plans to tentatively attend graduate school following her 27-month stay in Jordan.
"I want to go to medical school, hopefully," she said. "[The Peace Corps] might be a way for me to figure out what I really want to do with myself. I want to get more knowledge of what's going on in the world before I jump into graduate school."
Kait Hammersley '08, who will serve as an environmental education volunteer in sub-Saharan Africa, said she will find out the exact location of where she will serve within the next month. As an Environmental Studies and Visual Arts major with a minor in Biology, Hammersley said that working in environmental education seemed like the best fit.
Hammersley studied abroad in East Africa last year and said her experiences gave her an idea of the changes she can affect while volunteering with the Peace Corps.
"I've thought about doing it since high school and I studied abroad last year, where I was comfortable being really dirty and eating really gross food," she said. "I thought, 'Okay, I can do this.'"
Hammersley said she worries about being almost entirely removed from Americans, including other volunteers in her area.
"I think the one thing that I am nervous about is the idea of potentially being half a day away from the closest volunteer, being literally the only white person, and the only American in the village for weeks at a time."
Career Counselor Karen Daigler, who works primarily with students interested in education, non-profit work, and medical research, said Bowdoin's emphasis on the Common Good encourages many students to seek out service work after graduation.
"There is so much of an interest in international travel, international work, and giving back," she said. "So many Bowdoin students feel as though they have been given some wonderful opportunities so they want to try to help others."