Post-grad programs

Zach,

Thanks for your advice today on a post-grad program. I put them all into a list, and figured it might be fun to share it on the blog, to see if you or any stragglers out there in the series of tubes have any thoughts.

Again, my two main requirements for programs:

1. I want to work with smart and motivated kids around my age
2. I want to do something physical and as outdoorsy as possible

I'll just summarize some of the things I've been looking at (in rank order of relatively interesting-ness):

• American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
  
  • Zach and Yoav did programs here. Zach says it really defines the Jewish community of my generation. He says it's an excellent NGO.
    • They have a Volunteer Summer: 7 weeks in rural Africa, Asia, or Americas helping to build infrastructure and sustainability (http://ajws.org/what_we_do/service_and_travel_opportunities/volunteer_summer/)
• AVODAH is a Jewish Service Corps
  • http://www.avodah.net/apply/
• Humanity in Action has a summer program to explore social and political roots of discrimination
  • http://www.humanityinaction.org/programs/summerfellowship
• DOROT Fellowship
  
  • Jenny did this after college and she highly encouraged me to apply for this. It's like a year long in Israel. I don't know that it's up my alley exactly. But it looks compelling.
  • http://www.dorot.org/dfioverview
    
• SIT has a number of semester and summer programs
  • You could spend 6 weeks in the Balkans studying social exclusion and minority rights (http://www.sit.edu/SSA_Other_documents/SIT-Study-Abroad-summer-catalog.pdf)
• CIEE has a number of programs like SIT
  • http://www.ciee.org/study/index.aspx
    
• WWOOF is an international network focused on working on an organic farm, where you don't pay them anything and they don't pay you anything, but you live there, eat their food, and work
  • http://www.wwoof.org/
• Volunteers for Peace has a lot of projects throughout the world
  • For example, http://www.ivsp.org/vfpdetails.aspx?campcode=PerUrp22-10&begin=04/07/2010&end=04/27/2010&type=
• AmeriCorps looks cool
  • http://www.americorps.gov/about/ac/index.asp
• TechnoServe
  • Helping people in poverty devise business solutions. I think it's mostly for McKinsey folk. http://www.technoserve.org/work-impact/index.html
    

And for good measure,

• Skiing and working in Colorado
• Vipassana meditation or TM
• Going to yeshiva. Pardes looks amazing (http://www.pardes.org.il/student_life/)
  • Also: http://www.pardes.org.il/about/philosophy/index.php

Elliot