Oliver Coleman
Name:
Oliver Sebastian Coleman
MSU Degree:
BA in English with a TESOL Certificate, 2023
Favorite memories of being an undergraduate English major:
Honestly, I just really liked the community the students and professors created. I really enjoyed being encouraged to express my interests and explore new creative ways of analysis.
Current Position:
Youth Leadership Development (YLD) Volunteer in Panama
Organization:
The Peace Corps
When you graduated with a degree in English from MSU, what were your plans for your future? Has your career path mostly realized those early plans, or have you discovered new plans and goals along the way?
When looking for a career, my main goals are to help people, foster community, work on a dedicated team, be constantly challenged, and continually grow. These are broad goals, but I have many interests, and keeping my goals open allows me to delve into the opportunities currently within my reach. This means I did not have the most concrete plan after graduation. I applied to the Peace Corps, an ETA Fulbright Position, and a NALCAP position in Spain, while also looking into continuing my job as a forestry lab and field tech at Thompson Hall. I knew I wanted to go on to graduate school, but first I wanted to expand outside of academia. This was partially because I did not want to get stuck in the trap of going to graduate school out of fear of joining the workforce, partially because I wanted more time to understand and reflect on where and why I wanted to go to graduate school, and partially because I felt going into the workforce first would greatly benefit my graduate school experience. Importantly, I also wanted to find a job that would help me pay for graduate school given my financial situation.
By joining the Peace Corps, I continuously fulfill many of these goals while also planning for my future. Community outreach is central to my role as a volunteer. However, my site has an expressed lack of community, so I have had to get creative. Additionally, I have had to develop my patience as I must move at the pace the Panamanians desire and adapt my skills to the initiatives they are interested in. The teamwork component has been a work in progress as the Peace Corps has been rebuilding its base after the pandemic, but I am proud to watch as we all grow together, and I have hope for many improvements to come. Finally, I have certainly been continuously challenged and growing throughout my time here. It is hard to quantify it, but the Peace Corps has offered me novel volunteer opportunities as well as a space apart from almost everything I have ever known where I can reflect and look at myself from a new angle.
One goal I would like to focus on as I move on to the next part of my life is specialized learning. My Peace Corps experience has been fantastic for building my soft skills, but I have not been able to delve into my academic interests with the depth that I desire. Thus, my next step is to take advantage of the Coverdell Scholarships program offered to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). I have been able to identify more of my interests and skills during my time here, and I have also just begun to understand my capacities for travel and growth within the unknown. This has strengthened my desire to experience more of the world while continuing to help where I can. I hope to combine my new knowledge of myself with my academic goals during my future studies.
What is your current occupation, and what does your work mostly consist of?
I currently work for the Peace Corps in Panama as a Youth Leadership Development (YLD) volunteer. I started training in June of 2023, so I have been in Panama for just over a year. The Peace Corps experience is incredibly variable. Even if you have the same site and job as someone, it does not mean you will have the same experience. Two of the most common phrases said by our bosses are “let go of your expectations” and “poco a poco” (which means little by little). The latter refers to the pace of community integration and the lack of tangible results, especially initially.
To give you a general idea of my work, I will provide you with a brief overview of my year here. First, I had two months of training. Depending on the program, you may have three months of training and it can look very different. Essentially, my training consisted of a community component, a lecture component, and a technical component. The community component was realized through living with a host family for the duration of training. This allowed me to practice language skills in real time, bond with host country natives, and learn vital soft skills that I have used throughout my time in site. The lecture component covered the goals and expected execution of YLD. These goals consist of strengthening the life skills of youth as well as increasing youths’ community engagement and employability skills. The expected execution can be achieved through co-facilitating clubs, camps, mentoring, and other community activities. Additionally, one can co-teach in the schools. The opportunities are broad to allow adaptation for the needs, desires, and availability of services and professionals in the sites selected.
Moving onto my time in site, the first couple months consisted of integrating by meeting my neighbors, attending community events, and going house to house to explain what the Peace Corps was and what skills I was bringing to the community. It was also very important to ask what the community members wanted from me as well as what resources and groups were available. Keep in mind, I am located in a small town, and going up to your neighbor’s door is not only welcome but encouraged and expected by many. This was quite the culture shift from where I lived in the US, but, at times, it does feel similar to small towns in the US. As the months passed, (save the month of consolidation for country-wide instability due to protesting around a Canadian mining project) I accrued trust and friendships that led to me participating and assisting with some small summer projects for the kids. When the school year started, I was able to use the trust accumulated to move from observing the English classes to assisting with the orientation classes. These classes not only aligned with the goals the Peace Corps had set for me but with my passions and skills as well.
This leads me to the present day where I am implementing my own project from the expressed needs of the community. This project connects to the latter section of each orientation class. It consists of two questions per class that the students answer in folder journals I have created for them. I take them home with me, provide advice on the students’ answers, and return them for next week. I have curated these questions according to MEDUCA (the educational institution in Panama) standards and the classes my orientation teacher is teaching. In addition, these guidelines go hand in hand with the Peace Corps YLD program in Panama. My focus is on creating questions that encourage the students to think critically and become more self-sufficient while supporting and reinforcing their mental health. These questions all build upon each other, and the result is a folder of life skills as well as the students’ reflections that they can take with them after graduation.
For the remaining year and a half of my service, I have many potential avenues. I am looking into utilizing the local WiFi cafe to help students develop critical computer skills for university and employability. I am also talking to a psychiatrist who helps out at the school about a summer mental health program. (Summer starts halfway through December here and continues to the end of February.) Additionally, there is a small business that is known to help out with community service, so I am looking into connecting with them to encourage positive youth activities outside the school.
Which skills that you learned as an English major do you use most in your job?
The main skills that I utilize from my time as an English major include adaptive communication, cultural competence, critical thinking, and reflection. I use the phrase adaptive communication to encompass how I would alter my writing style to adhere to different professors’ standards, interests, and understandings. Sometimes this was because a professor was teaching us how to communicate in a different manner, and sometimes it was simply their preferences. Additionally, the process of identifying communication methods and being open to feedback on what is best for each professor is something I apply to everyday conversation. Being able to do this in writing is also helpful for grant writing, which many volunteers make use of in the Peace Corps.
Furthermore, a vital piece of any Peace Corps volunteer is their capacity for cultural competence. Your cultural competence encompasses an understanding of your own as well as other cultures and how they influence and interact with one another. Importantly, your competence comes from using this knowledge to navigate interactions respectfully and reflectively. This understanding is the foundation for effectively communicating in a culturally sensitive manner. While this skill is developed throughout the English major, I especially studied this during Methods in TESOL and Approaches to TESOL with Dr. Lourdes Cardozo Gaibisso. When you are applying others’ viewpoints and perspectives or viewing texts through specific lenses you develop the ability to see the world outside of your specific subjective perspective and better understand the intersecting factors shaping each individual's experience. Of course, a key way to develop this is to listen to the individuals themselves.
Finally, critical thinking and reflection are key to making the most of your Peace Corps experience and your life. The critical thinking I learned through theory and stories in my English major has been invaluable during my time in the Peace Corps. This opportunity of cultural immersion has challenged my understanding of my culture as well as ideas of right and wrong and good and bad. Additionally, part of what I appreciate about the Peace Corps is that not only do I have these experiences, but I also have ample time to reflect on them. Notably, I have noticed a direct correlation between my improved mental state and the amount of reflection I do, not to mention there are so many facets of my life to reflect on here along with my observations and conversations about the world in general. Ironically, my English major is helping me to reflect once again through writing this profile.
What additional skills did you need to learn in order to do your job, and how did you learn them?
The Peace Corps is a continual journey of learning new skills, so I have picked out a few major ones to focus on. Of course, a large part of my learning has been spent on Spanish. The Peace Corps has different language requirements by country, and not all of them need you to speak another language, but it was something I really wanted to challenge myself to do. Starting off, I looked into resources based on the research I did during my Second Language Acquisition class with Dr. Megan Smith. This led me to a site called “Dreaming Spanish,” which has been very helpful throughout my Spanish journey, not to mention it explains the theory behind how it is created. In addition, there is language training that varies from country to country for the Peace Corps, but it also varies in quality and duration.
Another skill set that I have acquired revolves around cultural integration. The initial training period was fairly helpful for this as I lived with a host family who taught me specifics about Panamanian cooking and maintenance. My Spanish was very basic during this period, so I was not able to have profound conversations with my host mother, but we were able to watch telenovelas every night. I make it a point to learn Panamanian history as well, which means reading certain texts, listening to the news, and having conversations with the Panamanians themselves. The crux of cultural integration is living with and sharing experiences with the members of your community.
Regarding my specific project, my cohort also received training on youth leadership and youth initiatives. There were challenges with our training, and the program is fairly new, so I have learned and solidified most of my understanding using the resources given to us while at my site. This includes how best to approach centering youth as leaders and tools for monitoring and evaluating projects. Additionally, it is crucial to network with the community by identifying their resources and consulting their leadership and government. Helping start these projects also meant I had to further develop skills of reaching out and delegating.
Are there common misconceptions about your career field, which current English majors might share, that you have learned the truth about?
Honestly, I see misconceptions about the Peace Corps all the time. I think part of this comes from how varied the Peace Corps experience is, combined with the changes implemented since the program started. These changes mean older volunteers may not be able to provide accurate advice about current experiences. The best people to ask are the ones in charge of the programs you are interested in. I would say ask the volunteers currently serving, but there is no guarantee you would be able to contact a current volunteer serving in your preferred position. By using the Peace Corps website, you can find the nearest recruiter to you and ask them for further information.
Of course, there are some misconceptions that I have seen disproven during my service. For example, I have fairly steady access to electricity, and my water is fairly steady except during summer when it will come on for an hour each day if I am lucky. However, other volunteers have very different experiences, with some having more and some having no running water or electricity. Some degree of signal access is required for Peace Corps Panama, and I am lucky to have a fairly steady signal. Once again, there are a handful of volunteers who make do with satellite phones. A lot of your placement comes down to your personal preference and where staff think you will thrive the best.
Additionally, the Peace Corps does employ devoted medical and security teams. I have had to navigate my chronic medical conditions during the application process and my time in service. If you would like more information on this, please reach out to me.
The biggest misconception I see about the Peace Corps is that you will be going in and vastly changing a community. A huge lesson that is important to understand in the Peace Corps is your community does not need you. You are not their savior. You are there to learn from them and exchange cultures. You will help them with what they ask and learn to function within their guidelines. This is not to say that the communities do not want you, however, and I have seen proof of the bonds made between many volunteers and their communities.
In what ways does your career enrich your life and help you to achieve your personal as well as your professional goals?
I think the most unique part of the Peace Corps is getting to live in a foreign country for a little over two years in a manner that integrates you into the culture. Experience carries so much weight and holds so many opportunities to understand and connect with people in entirely different cultures. I am not certain how to explain this part of the Peace Corps yet. I think I need to finish service and then do some more reflection, but I know that having an experience like this where I can directly talk to and live beside people in a different culture as opposed to solely doing research is an invaluable opportunity that I am grateful for.
Another part of the Peace Corps that is becoming increasingly important, in my opinion, is the downtime. While I have recently been told by another volunteer that I am potentially the worst in my cohort about taking time to rest, being surrounded by this culture and encouraged by my staff to take time to work on myself has been so valuable. Especially at this point in my life, being able to take advantage of this time to reflect and grow as a person outside of the culture I grew up in is one of the things I am most grateful for. Seeing my progress and how it spills out onto the community members and the other people in my life has been amazing. Truly, some of the best moments of the Peace Corps are just spending time with the friends that you make. I have a feeling when I look back, the moments I will remember the most will be the quiet ones like yesterday when I was reading a book in my hammock while one of the older ladies I live with listened to the news on her portable radio. She is quite attached to it and likes to repeat what it says to me when she hears something really interesting.
Additionally, the Peace Corps offers benefits during and after service. For example, I have had full medical support while in service. Regarding professional goals, the Peace Corps has a community of returned volunteers, non-competitive job eligibility, and scholarship opportunities. Personally, the Coverdell Fellowship is something I am immensely excited about. Because of financial constraints, I am only considering fully covered programs and still have a handful of options. This, of course, depends on what you are looking for specifically, but the list of participating universities and their programs are public if you want to take a look.
What advice do you have for undergraduate English majors right now who might want to follow the career path you did?
I am going to split this into Peace Corps advice and general life advice. Beginning with the Peace Corps, a critical part of being a volunteer is integrating into your community. Your service hinges on this. It is important to balance time alone with time in your community according to your needs. Gently pushing yourself to get involved can be especially helpful if you are hitting a slump. However, be prepared for rejection and to decenter yourself. The Peace Corps service is two years long because it can take months to start to gain trust and be included in your community. Practice humility and knowing your inherent worth outside of external praise and success. This attitude helps when the students do not show up for the fourth week in a row.
In the moment, look for community service opportunities where you are and get involved. Even if it's small, just start! You do not have to keep going to it if it does not work out, but getting started opens up more doors than you will ever expect. Start by looking for opportunities that interest you, but do not limit yourself to that. Also, you do not need to reach a certain amount of time or activities to be doing enough. A lot of people discourage themselves from even starting by thinking their efforts will be too small. Do what you can at your pace and do not let anyone convince you that is not sufficient.
Additionally, if you want to go to grad school after the Peace Corps, I have heard it is a good idea to take the GRE before. I did not, but I am not certain I will need it with the programs I am applying to. On that note, there is a Peace Corps subreddit that has some interesting information, though I tend to take it with a grain of salt as there are volunteers with outdated information who sometimes overgeneralize.
One piece of advice I have taken to heart, told to me by the country director of Peace Corps Panama, is to fail fast. This has been invaluable advice to me especially as there is nothing like moving to a new country, where you have no friends and do not speak the language, to lead to you having various failures whether you like it or not. And yet, every time, the worst failures resulted from me trying to avoid them and not asking for help. Failure is a continuous teacher and perfection is a lie. Being able to lean into these learning experiences and let go of harsh judgments placed upon me, first by others and then by myself, has allowed me to go further than ever before and live my life by my own choices instead of out of fear of failure.
On that note, everyone starts with an empty resume and no experience. Some people come into college with cool additions from high school and some people come in with nothing. That is okay. College is a great place to try all sorts of things. Get creative. Make connections. If money is tight, like it was for me, explore around for paid opportunities. It is not always immediate, but you would be surprised what you can find by casting a wide net. However, perhaps most importantly, spend time gently getting to know yourself. Do not limit yourself or place strict expectations on yourself for external success. There are enough limiting factors in life. Learn to work around them instead of adding more. Additionally, anyone who shames you for trying something is in the wrong. There is nothing wrong with branching out and being rejected. If you are interested, go for it! You learn valuable skills from the rejections too. They are part of the process.
My final piece of advice is to always remember that you are not alone and to reach out to people. Engage with the people that fill you up and that you fill up too. Engage with media and activities that connect you with humanity, whether directly or through their creations. This is especially important if you have not found your people yet, which is okay, by the way. I am only just now starting to find my people. Sometimes, you need to know yourself a little more or discover a little more of your trust in the world. Your community will be there waiting when you are ready. Let yourself be inspired and let yourself breathe. Do not judge yourself for where you are. Simply continue to work at a reasonable pace, little by little, to put yourself in a better place every day, even if that looks like just getting through the day.
Okay, now that you have so kindly indulged me in my ramblings, I want to give you my contact information in case you would like to know more. You can reach me by email at pearlofpeace3@gmail.com and by WhatsApp at +507 6868-9832 (regular messaging does not work at my site).
[Updated August 2024]