An American Citizen
I feel being an American citizen is a privilege and results in a sense of accountability for future citizens. I come from a family whom actions personify this philosophy. They are soldiers, deacons, civil servants and community leaders. In high school I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and soon a recruiter called me. I told him that I did not feel I could kill anyone for my country if asked to; he told me to look into the Peace Corps and hung up. After researching this foreign government agency that the recruiter suggested and reading Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, I realize that as a human, I had the responsibility to advance all people. The Peace Corps is an excellent way for me to both serve my country and the world.
I have desired joining the Peace Corps since my sixteenth birthday; in retrospect, wanting to be a worthy volunteer shaped many of my past experiences. From volunteering with first offenders in Durham, North Carolina to HIV awareness in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to starting a community garden in Atlanta, Georgia, I have found a way to give back to issues that I felt were not properly addressed in each community. As a soon to be graduate of Clark Atlanta University (CAU), I feel I finally have the experience and knowledge to be a volunteer. CAU's mottoes have become a part of my life:"Culture for Service" and "Find a way or Make one." The latter is one I have learned the hard way. In efforts to apply some of my environmental mindset on my new campus, I ran into barricades. However those mottoes will never live up to the Peace Corps' simple question: "Life is calling. How far will you go?" I am willing to propel myself into a new culture and learn from the world. I am ready to define myself as an ethical person whose world has less strangers. I am ready to see how far I will go and have a new motto become a part of my life. I would be honored to join the Peace Corps.
