Biology

Peace Corps Master Program graduate student Lauren Van Sicklin is in Madagascar. The photo above was taken at her volunteer swearing in ceremony.

Lauren will be living on the east coast of Madagascar in a small village. She will continue projects which include work-ing with an ecotourism start up business called Bamboo Ad-venture, agroforestry training with the community for ero-sion control, tree nursery construction, soil improvement and working with a youth organization in environmental educa-tion and school gardening.

Stated Lauren, “Madagascar is great! It’s beautiful, the peo-ple are great, my fellow Peace Corps volunteers are really supportive and everything has been great so far. I’m getting installed at site today. I will not have electricity at my site but there is an office in the park that has internet access that I should be able to use sometimes.”

The Master’s International program allows students to com-bine Peace Corps service with their graduate studies. Select-ed students typically spend one year on campus, subsequent-ly complete 27 months of Peace Corps training and service while undertaking an academic project, then return to cam-pus to fulfill any remaining degree requirements. The Mas-ter’s International program is currently offered at more than 80 universities across the country.