Sophie Anolick grew up in Evanston in the shadow of the third-largest city in the United States. Yet even in a highly urbanized area, Anolick was fascinated by agriculture.

Her passion for agriculture and the environment landed her a position as an agriculture volunteer with the Peace Corps in Senegal. Anolick (Weinberg ‘19) will depart in September and remain in Senegal for 27 months.

“I’m going to be farming, which is going to be really cool and something I’ve always really wanted to do,” Anolick said. “I’ve heard a lot of really good things about Senegal… but a lot of the issues they’re facing have to do with food security and drought.”

Anolick said she considers herself an environmentalist despite growing up near a major city, and minored in environmental policy and culture at Northwestern. She eventually hopes to go into food- or agriculture-related law, but wanted to gain farming experience before doing so.

She first became interested in the Peace Corps when her father introduced her to the idea last summer, and Anolick applied in September 2018.

“There are two different ways that you can apply to serve as a volunteer,” Anolick said. “You can apply directly to a specific position, and then you can also send in an application to serve where you’re needed most. And that’s where they look at your background and your qualifications, and they place you in a position. So that’s the option I picked.”

Anolick will not be the only member of this year’s graduating class to serve in the Peace Corps. Sasha Kogan (Weinberg ‘19) will also be joining in September, teaching sexual education to mothers and children in Cameroon. Kogan, who was a premedical student at Northwestern while majoring in neuroscience, also applied for the Peace Corps last summer and was accepted in December.

Kogan said there is not nearly as much of a conversation in Cameroon about sexual health compared to the U.S., so she hopes to educate Cameroonian families about how to stay safe and healthy.

“Cameroon, they have a pretty big problem with HIV and AIDS,” Kogan said. “My job is going to be kind of tough because I’m coming from a liberal Northwestern bubble where people obviously believe in sex ed. They think about it very differently.”

Kogan, like Anolick, will live in Africa for 27 months — three months of training and then two years of service. She said she will likely be staying in a rural village, without running water or internet access and only patchy electricity.

She said it will be tough at first to cope without amenities she has taken for granted living in the U.S., as well as not having contact with her friends and family from back home. Kogan also still has to gain a working knowledge of French, the official language in Cameroon.

“I’m excited to not be on my phone a lot and see what that’s like,” Kogan said. “I’m nervous about staying in contact with people; I think it’s going to be hard to do.”

But Kogan also said she is excited to live around a new culture and go outside her comfort zone to make friends. Likewise, Anolick said she is excited about the opportunity and feels the program is the right choice for her.

She said she never felt pressured to continue her education after college or go right into the working world, and that this is her only chance to do something like this, so she is glad to be taking advantage of it.

“I don’t think I’m going to miss too much,” Anolick said. “I can’t think of anything I’m going to learn more doing, that’s going to be more productive and fulfilling. I’ll get back into the workforce eventually, but this is a huge learning building block for me going forward, and I couldn’t get this experience anywhere else.”

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