Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Zachary Cooper set foot in 19 different countries during the four and a half years he spent in the Peace Corps. This afternoon at the Kansas Union, the 33-year-old graduate student from Pittsburg, will share those experiences with students interested in following in his footsteps.
“I’m just kind of curious to see where they want to go and what they want to do,” Cooper said.
Peace Corps volunteers can serve in more than 74 countries around the world doing anything from teaching university and primary school classes, to working in agriculture or educating locals about HIV prevention. The program lasts for 27 months; the first three are spent in training and are followed by two years of service.
Contributed photo
Zac Cooper, back middle, with John, Lea and children in Aralsk by the Aral Sea in May of 2003.
Heather Sutter, the University’s Peace Corps representative and Cooper’s fiancée, served in the West African nation of Burkina Faso from 2003 to 2005. She said it was difficult for students who are considering entering the Peace Corps to truly understand the experience without speaking to someone who had done it him or herself.
“I think actually talking to someone who has made that commitment makes it a lot more personal,” Sutter said. “You see the pictures of the places they have been and you hear their stories. Those are the kind of thing you don’t necessarily put in recruitment materials.”
Cooper isn’t short on personal knowledge of the Peace Corps lifestyle. While most Peace Corps volunteers return home after the two-and-half-year commitment, Cooper reenlisted a second time. During his first stint, he taught English in Kazakhstan from 2001 to 2003 and followed that by teaching science to primary school students in Ghana from 2003 to 2005.
Cooper said he hadn’t planned on returning to the Peace Corps for a second time, but he said that he didn’t have anything to return home to and he enjoyed interacting with the people and students he lived with so much that he committed to another assignment.
Cooper, a public school teacher before joining the Peace Corps, said it was rewarding to work with students who were invested in learning. He said there was a drastic difference in the attitudes of the majority of American schoolchildren compared to those he taught in Kazakhstan and Ghana.
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Application Workshop
Wednesday, Jan. 30
10 a.m. - Noon
Kansas Union, Parlors (A-C)
Around the World with the Peace Corps, featuring Zachary Cooper
Wednesday, Jan. 30
Noon-1 p.m.
Kansas Union, Parlors (A-C)
Interview Spree
Wednesday, Jan. 30
4-9 p.m.
Burge Union, Career Center
“I literally kicked a kid out of class one time because he said something offensive to another student and the kid got on his hands and knees and begged to stay in class,” Cooper said. “You don’t see that in America.”
Despite the rewards, Cooper said it was hard to be isolated from friends and family who were in the United States. He said it was important to have an open mind to prevent becoming bitter with the process.
Sutter said the Peace Corps was such a life altering experience that it was important to remember to keep things in perspective.
“I think definitely coming into it without expectations will serve you well because you are going to experience things that you can’t even really fathom being here in the U.S.,” Sutter said. “As much as you can try to prepare yourself for an experience like this, it’s so huge and so different from anything you could experience here that it’s really hard to do that.”
Although there were some difficult moments, Cooper said the positives far outweighed the negatives during his nearly five years volunteering overseas. He said the opportunity to travel and meet new people was an incredible experience. Most of all, he said he valued the relationships he was able to cultivate with his students and contemporaries.
“I learned that people are people and it doesn’t matter who they are, where they are from, or what their religion is,” Cooper said. “I think deep down inside everybody is pretty much the same.”
—Edited by Madeline Hyden
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