While a student at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, Andrew Bracken took a brand marketing internship on the west coast. A week after he started the job, Bracken realized the corporate world was not for him, and he filled out an application to join the Peace Corps.
Going to school at U-M challenged Bracken academically, but soon he found that the Peace Corps tested him emotionally.
Melissa Lea Foster Rietz (back center) joins a group of children while on assignment in Ecuador, South America. Foster Rietz, a registered nurse at the U-M Women’s Birthing Center, earned at nursing degree at U-M after volunteering with the Peace Corps. Photo courtesy Melissa Lea Foster Rietz.
“After the two experiences, I feel prepared to tackle any challenge,” says Bracken, who served from 2008-10 in Cape Verde and now has started a second assignment in Mozambique. “Seeing how I successfully adapted to new environments, as well as realizing the myriad opportunities outside the U.S., Peace Corps vastly increased the possibilities I will consider in the future.”
Bracken is featured among nearly 80 returning Peace Corps volunteers who have shared testimonials on the university’s Peace Corps website, peacecorps.umich.edu. U-M ranks fourth as an all time producer of Peace Corps volunteers with 2,331 alumni having served. There are 73 U-M alumni now serving in the Peace Corps.
Since Bracken will serve in Mozambique until next year, he will miss this month’s events commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sen. John F. Kennedy’s Oct. 14, 1960, speech outside the Michigan Union. Kennedy that night sparked the creation of the Peace Corps when he urged students to work in developing countries to promote peace.
U-M graduate Andrew Brecken (left) works on a water and sanitation project in Cape Verde. Brecken spent two years with the Peace Corps in the island country off the coast of western Africa and now is on a second assignment in Mozambique. Photo courtesy Andrew Brecken.
So far, Bracken has developed a wide range of job skills from his volunteer opportunities.
“In my two posts I worked in an array of fields, including business development, wine-making, education, water and sanitation, public health, and agribusiness,” he says. “It would prove extremely difficult to get such diverse experiences in a traditional job in the U.S. I hope to focus on one of these areas while in Mozambique, so I can take advantage of graduate school and job opportunities available to returning Peace Corps Volunteers when I return to the U.S.”
Natalie Wowk, who served from January 2008-December 2009 in Namibia, plans to attend several Peace Corps celebration activities, especially an Oct. 13 talk by novelist and former volunteer Paul Theroux.
There are many reasons Wowk joined the Peace Corps.
“Ultimately I wanted an adventure and a challenge. And that’s exactly what I got,” says Wowk, who served as a math tutor and a physical science teacher.
Wowk’s experience in Namibia deeply changed her.
“It’s difficult to explain in words what value my Peace Corps experience has for me; indeed it’s different for everyone,” says Wowk, who just entered the Masters in Urban Planning program at U-M. “There are many things — the satisfaction at having risen to meet one of the greatest challenges of my life, the opportunity for personal reflection, the joy in my personal relationships with Namibians. Most of all, I never have to look back and wonder ‘what if…?’
“I am definitely interested in working and volunteering abroad again, especially in Africa.”
Melissa Lea Foster Rietz, a registered nurse at the U-M Women’s Birthing Center, served from 2003-05 in Ecuador, South America. While in Ecuador, Foster Rietz was an animal production volunteer and assisted with a women’s cooperative.
“I joined the Peace Corps in order to fulfill a life long desire to live among and with people in a developing country,” she says. “I was constantly crossing paths with people who had served in the Peace Corps, and while all of their experiences were diverse, the common theme was that Peace Corps changes you — and I wanted to experience that type of change and transformation.”
After returning from her assignment, Foster Rietz was inspired to pursue a nursing degree at U-M. She now works at the university and is enrolled as a master’s student in the School of Nursing.
“Serving in the Peace Corps is what led me into my current career as a nurse,” she says. “I was able to serve as a translator with the medical mission Operacion Esperanza and was surrounded by the most incredible staff of nurses. These were women and men who gave so much of themselves for the health and well being of others, who had a tangible way of healing, and who passionately loved what they were doing. I knew right away that I had found my career path and five years later I am in the Family Nurse Practitioner/Occupational Health Certificate program with every intention of using my skills abroad.”
Foster Rietz says she’s looking forward to the Peace Corps 50th anniversary celebration, and plans on attending the Oct. 16 Tailgate Party for U-M’s Homecoming football game, and the game itself, which will honor returning Peace Corps volunteers during the half-time program.
