Blazing New Trails - career development

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Catherine Siskos

STARTING OUT | College graduates have a chance to branch out into DIFFERENT CAREERS before putting down roots, and earn money at the same time.

CAFFRAY KELLER studied archaeology in college but was reluctant to undertake years of graduate study. Ariel Frey wanted to try teaching before starting medical school. Eric Morin thought overseas experience would help him land a job abroad.

When you're just starting out in a career--or don't know which career to pursue--you don't always have the luxury of exploring alternatives while still paying the bills. Yet Keller, Frey and Morin ail managed to have a brief fling with adventure and earn money to boot.

Keller joined AmeriCorps, which places participants throughout the U.S. in projects ranging from disaster relief to environmental assistance. Frey committed two years to Teach for America, which sends college graduates in ail disciplines to teach in 13 underserved areas around the country. Morin joined the Peace Corps and is spending two years in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia. Ail three will earn money for their service. Ail are eligible to defer payment on student loans--and in the case of AmeriCorps and Teach for America, interest will be paid on federal loans that have been deferred.

Career twists. So far, Keller, 29, is pleased with the twist her career path has taken. She is literally blazing new trails with AmeriCorps (800-942-2677; www.americorps.org), which she joined two years ago when the program was recruiting members to build park trails in Florida and root out foreign plants that were destroying native ecosystems.

Keller sometimes works 13-hour days, after which she pitches her tent and rustles up dinner over a camp stove. She enjoys her work so much that she signed on for a second one-year stint.

But it was talking to visiting schoolchildren about the parks that suggested a new career: teaching science in Florida's public schools when her AmeriCorps service is over. "Most people go to work right out of college and don't have the opportunity to see what else they're capable of," says Keller.

Keller's monthly stipend amounts to a meager $639, so money is tight even though she lives with her fiance rent-free. But she will earn an education award of $4,725 for each year of service that can be used to pay off student loans or for graduate-school tuition. The award counts as taxable income.

Participants in Teach for America (800-832-1230; www.teachforamerica .org) are eligible for the same education award. They often apply it toward a degree in education or a teacher-certification program, which participants must pursue during their two years of service. Instead of a stipend, Teach for America pays a full teacher's salary, ranging from $20,000 a year in rural districts to $34,500 in inner-city schools.

Frey, 22, is in her first year of teaching 18 boisterous third graders at Thomas G. Hayes elementary school in Baltimore. "I'm still in survival mode," says Frey, who's working toward a master's degree in education at Johns Hopkins University. She postponed plans to attend Yale Medical School, which is holding a place for her.

Desirable employees. Taking time to acquire other skills is typical of young adults nowadays. "These kids expect to cycle through several employers in their lifetime," says David Reed, a recruiting director with Andersen Consulting. In turn, more companies are finding community-service veterans desirable because "they have gone someplace new and adapted," says Diane Wilson, owner of a career-consulting firm in Chicago.

Morin, 28, expects his experience in Uzbekistan, combined with his MBA from the University of West Florida, to lead to an oil-industry job in the region when he leaves the Peace Corps next year. The Peace Corps (800-424-8580; www.peacecorps.gov) sends people worldwide, but the demand for volunteers is especially high in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

In Uzbekistan, Morin teaches business basics, such as profit margins and investment returns, to junior-college students skeptical of the free market. "The Soviet way of determining profit was if you had money in the cash register at the end of the day," says Morin.

Morin's monthly stipend, paid in the local currency, equals about $100. But with the hyperinflation of Uzbekistan's black-market economy, it's worth about $30. The Peace Corps wires an additional $225 a month to Morin's U.S. bank account, a readjustment allowance for when he returns stateside.

The four-room house Morin shares with a local family lacks indoor plumbing, so he helps haul buckets of water from a nearby well. The only foreigner in town, he's become a local curiosity, who can't play basketball alone without attracting an audience. When asked what he misses most (aside from his privacy), the 6-foot 5-inch teacher says two things are hard to come by in Muslim Uzbekistan: pork and size 13 shoes.

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