Saturday, March 5, 2016

Melanie: Finding Inspiration

Hi! My name is Melanie Sheehe and I am a freshman at Penn State University Park.  I grew up in Hershey Pennsylvania as a lover of film, the environment, and social service.  I came across the Community, Environment and Development major during my new student orientation and knew that it was the perfect major for me.  I am an intended Spanish minor, as I took many years of it in high school and one semester here at Penn State.

My dream has always been to one day become a member of the Peace Corps.  I want to represent my home country as a nation of selflessness and service while also using my college degree to help create sustainable growth in underdeveloped nations around the world.  Many countries, like Costa Rica, have always instilled inspiration in me, because as a nation, the government prioritizes the conservation of natural resources and supplies adequate funding for national parks and wildlife reserves.  I have always wanted to work in a place that holds the values of a morally conscious and conservative nation.  The understanding that many countries in Latin America hold these values has driven me to continue to take Spanish so that one day I might be able to study in one of these Spanish speaking countries.


As for the Peace Corps, I have some experience travelling to developing countries and during my travels, I noticed that many of the relief efforts from nations like the US involve giving away resources and supplies, when this action is only a temporary fix that worsens the state of the struggling economy in the long run.  Instead of this, I want to use my life to spread knowledge to these countries so that they are able to recover and continue to grow in a sustainable way. This way, the foundation of the nation is strengthened through community and steady growth. I am particularly interested in the use of environmentally conservative transportation, like bicycles and public transportation; both of which reduce the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels. 

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