Alumni Report: On the Road with Anders Conway IPE '06

My name is Anders Conway. After graduating from UPS with an IPE major in May of 2006 I spent a doing a lot of different things. After a stint traveling for a couple months mostly in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, I traveled to Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan I utilized my background in outdoor education and wilderness tripping as well as the little bit of Russian I picked up during an undergraduate study abroad to get started working for a little NGO in Bishkek called the Alpine Fund. I worked in the office, studied Kyrgyz and Russian and worked with local at risk kids to take them to the mountains and learn some English.
I am currently a graduate student at the University of Washington’s Jackson School for International Studies pursuing a M.A. degree from their Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia Program. My emphasis will be Central Asia. I found the experience to be an invaluable grounding personally as well as professionally and if anybody wants to talk about post-graduate volunteering, work opportunities and/or graduate school, I am available.

I put together a blog while I was away: wandersponders.blogspot.com. There is some stuff in there about wilderness trips over the summer. Most of it is IPE related, however.

Before I go, I would just like to say that distancing one’s self from the US is not only a great way to seek new frontiers far away but also presents an almost unique opportunity to read and study all those books you have heard so much about but never had time to get to in between classes.