Service Engagement at UMSI -- Peace Corps Coverdell Program

Hi everyone! My name is Sarah Anderson, and I am a 3rd year dual degree Master of Science in Information (Information Analysis and Retrieval concentration) and Master of Public Policy candidate. I am writing this blog post to talk about how I ended up at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) as a previous Peace Corps participant and the many ways in which UMSI complements Peace Corps service.

My road to UMSI was an indirect one. I studied international affairs as an undergraduate and worked as an AmeriCorps*VISTA in my home state of Maine directly after graduation, waiting to see if my dream of joining the Peace Corps would become a reality. Fortunately for me, the wait paid off, I left Maine in 2010 to start my 27-month Peace Corps journey in Albania.

I served as a Community and Organization Development Facilitator in a mid-sized city in south-central Albania; this broad title left me open to exploring all types of opportunities for community involvement, which I readily took advantage of. I worked with the local youth center Qendra Rinore on developing summer programming and ties with other community organizations, and in these roles I saw significant fragmentation of the flow of information. In fact, on several occasions, the Qendra Rinore directors would go to work only to find the electricity shut off without warning because of some problem taken place at the Municipality. I spent another large chunk of my service working at said Municipality’s Office of Economic Development to create a information management system for its donor contacts and to help with the documentation of office projects to enable smooth transitions of employees coming and going.

Towards the end of my time in Albania, I knew that I wanted to enhance my skill set further so as to make the greatest impact in my intended future career path of public service; however, I quickly realized degrees in many different fields would help me get there.  Since I wasn’t able to visit any schools in person, I did my due diligence in researching schools as fully as I could. I talked with former and current students, I checked out admissions blogs (like this one!) and went to school-coordinated online chats, and I cross-referenced my final choices with the Peace Corps Paul C. Coverdell Fellowship opportunities.  In all of my research, it became clear that the University of Michigan was a welcoming, resource-rich, and highly multidisciplinary school, making it easy for me to pursue classes across disciplines. With that, I came to the University of Michigan in 2012 to start my degree as a Master of Public Policy (MPP) candidate.

During my first year of my public policy program, I realized how much I enjoyed crunching data pertaining to social good outcomes. As semesters passed, I learned of more and more experiences happening at the School of Information that were a great melding of this data crunching and service learning--the exact combination of what I wanted to be doing (see the Ann Arbor Data Dive and Alternative Spring Break programs as two major examples). I also realized as I was trying to fill my cognate courses requirements--courses outside of my intended degree program--that the classes that often seemed most interesting were housed in UMSI.  

Last fall, I started giving serious consideration to pursuing a second graduate degree at UMSI as part of a dual degree with my public policy program. As I was updating my application materials and reaching out to more recent mentors for recommendations, I learned that UMSI was starting a new partnership with Peace Corps to become part of the Coverdell program. I took this as a serendipitous sign that I was making the right choice for my future.

I am proud to say that I am now a 3rd year dual degree MSI/MPP student and a UMSI Coverdell Fellow. I have taken advantage of numerous service opportunities since being here, such as  helping with analyze nonprofit survey data on two separate projects with Ann Arbor Data Dive and the Community Information Corps, respectively. I will also be heading to Washington, D.C. this coming March as a participant in the Alternative Spring Break program.  Furthermore, my classes are specific to what I hope to my doing in my career--helping public organizations make better use of their data--and highly complementary to my public policy courses. This third year has greatly enhanced my knowledge base and skill set to be fully prepared upon graduation.

If you have questions about the UMSI Peace Corps Coverdell program or pursuing a dual degree MSI/MPP, please feel free to reach out to me at andersaa@umich.edu.