AmeriCorps: The Beginning

I’ve always been someone whose interests are all over the place. I have contemplated being a lawyer, doctor, teacher, writer, business owner, therapist, and graphic designer. I thought that college would be perfect for me–4 years to figure out what I really wanted to do. I assumed that I would take one inspirational course with a quirky professor and that would be it. I would be on my way to becoming the next great archeologist. That didn’t happen, probably because those things only happen in TV. So here I am. A college graduate still unsure with what I want to do with my life. Such a cliché I know.

I didn’t want to sit at a desk job that I hated for a few years only to realize that I was on the wrong path, but I also didn’t want to invest another hundred grand to go to grad school after which I probably still would be floundering. Peace Corps was ruled out for health reasons (see my last post about Peru). That’s how I ended up at AmeriCorps, well the short version at least.

For those of you who don’t know, which I’m sure is most of you, AmeriCorps is a one year volunteer program. You are assigned to a region of the United States and respond to needs in the region. This can be anything from tutoring in an after school program to working in a community health center to building trails in a national park. There are two main branches of AmeriCorps: VISTA and NCCC. With AmeriCorps VISTA, volunteers are hired directly by a nonprofit organization to do a specific job. These positions pay roughly $12,000 per year, and you are responsible for spending this however you like. I am enrolled in AmeriCorps NCCC, which places volunteers at a campus in one of their five regions. We go on 4-5 “spikes” during our term, which are short community projects that vary widely in job description. Our housing and food are provided, which means our stipend is only $4,000 per year. We do more physical labor while VISTAs do more administrative and capacity-building work. We work in teams of 10-15 and move around frequently based on where the need is. This means that we are often first responders during natural disasters.

So that’s AmeriCorps in a nutshell. I was placed in the Pacific Coast Region, which means I will be based in Sacramento but may be sent to any of the following states: California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska. As someone who loves the outdoors, I was thrilled to be placed in this region.

I don’t know where I am going to be sent on spike, and I don’t know who is on my team. But to me that’s part of why I chose AmeriCorps. Yes, I get incredibly jealous of my friends sometimes who have 401K plans, new apartments, and company cell phones. But, I figure that I have the rest of my life to have those things. While they’re making excel spreadsheets, I could be fighting forest fires or cleaning up an oil spill. I inherently hate uncertainty, so doing AmeriCorps is kind of like fighting against every one of my instincts. But that’s why I feel that I have to do it. It’s like eating vegetables or getting on the treadmill. It may go against every fiber of your being that’s telling you to just order in and catch up on some Netflix, but it’s better for you in the long-run. It’s an investment in yourself. So this year I’m investing in myself in the hopes that it pays off later in life. Maybe I’ll be able to avoid the mid-life crisis because I got that all out of my system when I was younger.

There’s a quote by J.R.R. Tolkien that says “not all who wander are lost.” I mean this doesn’t really apply to me, because I am lost. But I guess I’m okay with wandering for a bit too.