Change majors to engineering; new discoveries and inventions solve problems and makes the biggest difference in the world, not policy. Do and build things, not talk about them.
(imho)

I'm just kidding-trying to be polemic.
I'd do the DC thing personally

Thucy, I face a similar dilemma. As an Economics major associated with one of the Freshwater Schools, I have 3 paths - one that has me go into rural South Asia lending money on a non-profit basis to households below the poverty line, another that has me stay in school and write equations on blackboards, and a third which has me go move billions of dollars around on Wall Street.

It's a tough choice. But there's always room for a mid-life career change. Are you by chance involved on the college Model UN circuit?

"Do and build things, not talk about them."

You may be right that this is most meritorious, but one needn't be an engineer for that. I can teach English and build a school and defend human rights all without anything more than basic math.

That's the kind of stuff I want to do... but there is the nagging notion of the policy approach.

Btw when I say "policy" I'm talking about development policy. I'm still interested in Africa etc its just the other approach has me talking about it in the UN offices or whatever, the other has me in some village somewhere.

Also, ava, it's interesting you mention Model UN. I did it in high school and loved it.

Didn't know there was one for college, can you give me a link or something?

DC would probably become very frustrating indeed before long, and I'm not sure, even being selfish, you'd be happy with feeling important/gaining notoriety.

You can always switch between the two- have you considered, if you are going down the DC line, taking a few years teaching etc. before returning? You'd probably be doing yourself a lot of favours if you did.

Thucy,

Avoid Mordor on the Potomac at all costs - no good comes from there. It is a soul-sucking moral wasteland. I know people who have gone there for precisely the same reasons you're considering, and they are changed in their time there - not in a good way. If you choose to 'work' there, I guarantee whatever work you do will be applied to evil ends - with or without your knowledge - by any of the innumerable Special Interests to serve their agendas, and not for whatever good you intend.

Doing good works with your own hands is what you ought to do. You will know exactly how you affect things, and have the satisfaction of seeing how your good deeds directly improve peoples' lives - something you will never get if you spend your life in a cubicle writing policy papers. You would also not need to worry as much about being manipulated by powerful people for evil ends.

Also, keep in mind that the hands-on approach would give you the best experience and 'street cred' if you were to change your mind and want to be a 'policy' person, but the reverse is not true.

DC of course.

If you decide that going to Africa is your thing you can always do it later.

However, if you think being physically there will make a huge difference to anyone but your own perception of yourself ... you're not as smart as you seem, so maybe DC will be a lost cause anyway :)

Make sure that in going to a country to teach English you do not:

a) cost more, all things considered, than the hiring of a suitable local; and
b) take a job opportunity away from the same local...

A lot of voluntary work tends to benefit the doer more than the receiver. Not that it is a bad thing to get something out of the effort on a personal level but the aim must be to benefit the receivers more than would be possible ordinarily.

Flashman's caveats are good ones but even if your post in Africa fails those tests there is a potential long term benefit to you and to them through the real experience you will gain. That should make you a better, more committed and credible policy maker in the future. It is easier to get that sort of experience whilst young, free of kids & mortgage, etc.

Who says he doesn't have kids? ; )

@Ava, Thucy: did you attend the model UN meeting in The Hague? The international schools here provide most of the "staff" for the event so my kids have both taken part in that.

@diplomat:

I am very, very interested in this... My son (who plays on here as Wombat) was under the impression that it was very hard to get an invitation to the Hague event. He has a very good cv already - but wants to try the Hague.

No one said he is young or mortgage free either, but it is likely all three apply.

@Flashman: AFAIK there are a number of schools from around the world that participate each year. There may be other organisations too so if his school doesn't go then he needs to find one of those. The organisation that runs it is www.thimun.org which may help.

The international schools in The Hague send delegations, and also supply "staff" to hold doors open, pass messages and so on.

Indeed, I would stay away from the Africa option.
There are already enough young people who want to do their token gesture by teaching English. If you wanted to really help in those area's great, but you'd probably be more useful in some other way

I had a student who sneaked in (to the Hague) two years ago when he was 15. He just applied and lied on the form about his age. He travelled as a minor and all alone... I didn't know until it was a done deal.

He was lucky that he was allowed to enter the country and was able to participate in the event. The down-side was that he was given an almost non-existent role as he did not even represent a school, he was just a fly on the wall basically. Mistake.

Same age as my son, who is now just 17.

We had a completely different experience at Cornell two MUNs back. I registered my own school ( a very small language school) and he went as a delegation of one with me as the required responsible adult. Because we were travelling from so far the organisers allowed him to choose which event he wanted to take part in. He chose, and was given, a place on the UK delegation for the WWI Crisis Committee. Absolutely brilliant: he was extremely active throughout the whole event and was elected Outsanding Delegate too. A very expensive trip (from HK) but a very very good experience.

We are of the impression that, at its best, The Hague is THE MUN to attend.

Slight aside: What do you teach?

Now: English, but mainly high level stuff - thinking & writing. Previously Pure Maths and Stats - I have had two lives as a teacher.

@flashman: great experience there. The kids here don't quite get it, mainly because they are expected to do scut work around the event, but I think they will value it later.

"I'm interested in human rights and poverty in Africa, west Africa especially."

There's your first problem.

Africa has been a bottomless pit for many years. We've been dumping time and money there for God only knows how long and we've had almost no measurable progress. We spend billions of dollars each year on AIDS treatment, and what do we get for it? The population refuses to use condoms, because they think that it's a conspiracy to limit the African population. Another popular (and sexist) myth is that using a condom diminishes the power of the man in society. They instead go to their witch doctors, who tell them that you can cure AIDS by having sex with a young child. And there are leaders of African countries who claim that HIV does not cause AIDS but poverty.

The solution is, as LordVipor said, change majors to something worthwhile, and give up on the bottomless sinkhole that is Africa.

@rlumley: just because you have given up is no reason that Thucy should. Perhaps he will be the guy whose experience on the ground gives him an insight which creates a policy that "solves" Africa.

Or perhaps the social and religious persuasion of Africa make it worthless.

There is no reason to think that.

I just gave you like eight reasons.

You gave four reasons why the fight against AIDS is not being won.
You have given none to support the contention that "the social and religious persuasion of Africa make it worthless".

I don't see how you would need to choose a path at this time. Alternatively, I think the same path will lead to the same options once you graduate.

You already speak English. What more do you need to do to pursue the path leading you to teach English in Africa? Perhaps real life contacts and experience in an African nation. So do a semester abroad or summer internship in Africa. You move forward on both paths at the same time.

@flashman - THIMUN at The Hague is supposed to be quite amazing. I run the finances for MUNUC, a high school Model UN conference in Downtown Chicago, and we have had discussions with THIMUN on various 'industrial' standards and such. THIMUN runs a conference in Singapore, which might be more accessible from HK. But if your son is 17, it probably means the next time he competes in MUN, it will be in college! College MUN conferences tend to be much more competitive and with a better pool of well-researched and passionate delegates, in my experience. They also have more diverse crisis committees that are not only great fun to be on, but extremely challenging simulations of the real world.

As a sample:

http://chomun.uchicago.edu/committees.html
http://ncsc.modelun.org/

A degree in international relations, by the name, since I don't know what is actually involved, sounds better suited to Washington rather than to early age education in Africa.
But you should be asking someone who actually knows about this stuff, both the Washington side and the African side.

Haha sorry guys I didn't necessarily mean teaching English in Africa... that was just an example. First and foremost my goal is to improve their lives however I can. Don't get hung up on the English teaching thing it's just all I could think of off the top of my head.

"The solution is, as LordVipor said, change majors to something worthwhile, and give up on the bottomless sinkhole that is Africa."

rlumley, with respect, that is a load of fucking bullshit. I refuse to believe that and refuse to go through my privileged life blithely while people no better or worse than me suffer horrors too awful for any of us to understand. I will not give up on Africa, not now, not ever. I'd sooner die.

On a less serious note, I think I would end up working in an aid organization of sorts. It is well known that aid as it stands has not worked and is often detrimental. This does not make the problem intractable. For my part, I would like to put myself to the challenge and see if I cannot affect some positive change. Though certainly not single-handedly, perhaps I can be a part of Africa's turnaround. In fact, there is reason to believe the turnaround has already begun.

Don't lecture me about Africans and condoms and witch doctors. I know all about what you're talking about... remember... I study it. I spend all my time on it. This is their culture. It is, in this case, detrimental to their health, but this does not mean that they are out of reach of our help or that their culture should be destroyed. It has been bastardized enough by our influence, to do so more would be a crime.

No, the only influence on African culture from the outside that I would endorse, and indeed, even partake in, is that of education. It is my belief that education, ultimately, is the key to beginning to solve the problems in Africa. With education, the specter of ignorance about AIDS etc will be banished. With education, people are better prepared to get jobs and make real money, and lift themselves out of poverty. With education, people are uplifted and affirmed, because, though it has been said before, your education is something no one can take away from you.

So yes, perhaps I will meet many Africans who would rather I went home and tended my own affairs as it were. This is unfortunate, and I hope they will not see me as some sort of babysitter. It is not as though they cannot solve their own problems. I would just like to help them solve it faster.

It is akin to a man slipping and falling. I can watch him labor to try to get up while I sit on my ass, or I can jump to my feet and assist him, with the utmost respect. Which is the decent thing to do?

I hope to become totally immersed in African ways, so that I am not just a foolish white boy, though well-intentioned, nothing more than a bumbling idiot. No. I refuse to be that. And just because there are thousands of other youth just like me does not mean for a moment that I should not be doing what I am doing.

How I could ever sit and do nothing, pursuing my own superficial life in the US while others in the world suffer and die is unimaginable to me. People go through their life looking for their purpose, and I have found mine. My purpose is to help those less fortunate than I am.

So maybe I will go to Africa lol. DC, you are right, is probably just a soul-sucking clusterfuck. The reason I can't quite put the idea to bed is I am tempted to believe in myself, to believe that I can resist the moral corruption, "infiltrate" the Washington establishment as it were, and bring change on a broad scale.

But this is likely impossible. Or, if not impossible, improbable, with dubious benefit.

Anyway sorry to rant. I don't hate you rlumley. I hate what you said.