<p>I am considering the Peace Corps (or a similar program) before starting my professional life at law school. How feasible is this? Is it difficult to get into the Peace Corps? Is “work experience” better than “volunteer experience?” Any information would be grand.</p>
<p>If you have the GPA and test scores, it doesn’t matter. Some people find taking time off from school, no matter the activity, to be very useful. Of course, if you can do something productive, then its another positive.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, it’s a “soft extracurricular.” You should do it only if you really want to do it. But for a school like Northwestern known for the attention its adcoms pay to work experience, perhaps that kind of experience could bolster your portfolio.</p>
<p>What is peace?</p>
<p>Depends where you think you might like to go with you law career.
If you are thinking Public/Civil/Government Service such as State Department then it is seen as almost indispensable.
If you are angling towards an private sector international law career then the overseas experience that having been a PCV will serve you well on a resume as well.</p>
<p>In any case…No prospective employer would consider the PC as a negative in an applicants background history</p>
<p>
If you are thinking about public/civil/government service, service in the military especially as a commissioned officer is far more beneficial than the Peace Corps. Both in terms of recruitment and benefits. There’s virtually no other scholarship/financial aid out there that can even touch what the Post 9/11 GI Bill offers.
If you’re physical incapable of serving, then I suppose you have no choice.</p>
<p>Help the truly impoverished. Ask for a placement in North Korea; 27 months to spread hope at a prison camp. If that won’t impress employers, I don’t know what will. Putting that on your resume is like fishing with dynamite.</p>
<p>Yes well the military might be the better option if you don’t mind getting shot at and have no problem tying up years of your life for a commission.</p>
<p>Otherwise the PC offers unparalleled recognised and quantifiable ‘experience’ vis-a-vis a future law career in the areas of State/Diplomatic/Aid/Trade in the government and in the legal departments of NGO’s or perhaps as a foreign legal analyst in banking, media, risk management international corporations…the list goes on</p>
<p>And you don’t have to worry about a posting to the Hermit Kingdom,
The PC don’t go to unfriendly places like Iran, N Korea, Cuba, or Venezuela</p>
<p>PC is better for law school admissions than “regular” work experience is. It is hard to get into the PC these days and you may sit around for months waiting for your assignment.</p>
<p>
You’re right. Those dorks are better off imitating the deeds of real men by playing Counter Strike, Halo, or Call of Duty in their dorm rooms or at home to avoid embarrassment or injury.</p>
<p>To Polo08816</p>
<p>Ooooooh! Real men eh? You make it sound so macho!
Perhaps you are surreptitiously looking forward to a repeal of DADT, who knows?</p>
<p>But maybe everyone looking for a career in LAW isn’t a going to be a gung-ho Rambo type.
Maybe that’s to what the ‘peace’ part of Peace Corps refers?</p>
<p>And there are plenty of positions in the real world which the Peace Corps provides real and tangible experience.</p>
<p>Funnily enough the private sector and government civil service consider an applicant who has travelled extensively outside the US, immersed themselves in a foreign language and culture, all the while having extended the ‘soft power’ dimension of US foreign policy, as a distinct asset when recruiting.</p>
<p>Whereas travelling to foreign shores to shoot people is less likely so.</p>
<p>Regardless…the OP was asking about PC and Volunteer programs…Not the AF.</p>
<p>UMAD?</p>
<p>You sound mad.</p>
<p>Mad?
Not at all.
But I don’t sneer at others simply because they don’t choose a military option…</p>
<p>What did you post earlier about choosing the PC over the AF?</p>
<p>“Those dorks are better off imitating the deeds of real men by playing Counter Strike, Halo, or Call of Duty in their dorm rooms or at home to avoid embarrassment or injury.”</p>
<p>‘Dorks’
‘imitating…real men’
‘avoiding embarrassment’</p>
<p>How very Neanderthal of you.</p>
<p>I like Halo…</p>
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</p>
<p>There are plenty of people in the military who have never shot a weapon outside of training, much less been shot at. In fact, the majority of soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines have never seen combat.</p>
<p>All of the opportunities you cited for the Peace Corps apply to the military as well. In fact, for a gov’t position, preference goes to military veterans so the PC will give you no discernable advantage unless approximately ZERO veterans apply.</p>
<p>Also, the PC may not go to “U.S.-unfriendly” zones but they do go to places like Rwanda, where I wouldn’t be caught dead without a gun. Unfortunately, the PC basically is the military without the benefits or the guns. Didn’t know that the military did humanitarian ops did you? I bet not.</p>
<p>It’s pretty ridiculous that LaContra believes that military service is just “getting shot at” and “tying up years of your life”.</p>
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</p>
<p>[Financial</a> Benefits and Loan Deferment | What Are the Benefits? | Learn About Volunteering | Peace Corps](<a href=“http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whyvol.finben]Financial”>http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whyvol.finben)</p>
<p>Looks like you’ll be living broke if you go the PC route.</p>
<p>Unless you are physically incapable of military service, military service as a commissioned officer offers far better leadership experience, greater benefits, and more prestige than the Peace Corps.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>However, I am slightly a hardcore pacifist…so, the military option never attracted me.</p>
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<p>Do you think being openly gay renders one physically incapable of serving?</p>
<p>Just wondering.</p>
<p>(I know DADT has been repealed but it has yet to be fully implemented.)</p>