Peace Corps Pre-Service Training is two to three months (depending on your post) of intense, long days. I learned a lot during my PST through language classes, practicum, and technical training sessions. Here’s a day in my life as a trainee:

morning

7:15am — Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.

7:30am — Alarm goes off again. Desire to hit snooze this time too, but get out of bed anyway.

7:45am — Get ready for work

8:00am — Eat breakfast after host mom knocks on the door and tells me that breakfast is ready

8:20am — Finish breakfast, put some lunch* in a to-go container, and brush teeth
*I usually made a large amount of stir-fry or pasta and took it for lunch every day

8:30am — Leave the apartment and walk to the trolley bus stop

8:50am — Arrive at my language teacher’s trolley bus stop, and walk five minutes to her apartment

9:00am-11:00am — Language class part 1

11:00am-11:15am — Break (so basically eating cookies and having tea)

11:15am-1:15pm — Language class part 2

afternoon

1:15am-2:15pm — Lunch

2:30pm-3:30pm — Commute to the animal shelter where we have our practicum once per week

3:30pm-5:30pm — Work with animal shelter on marketing, staff development, or strategic planning for their organization

evening

5:30pm-6:15pm — Some of our group members lead English club for the staff at the animal shelter

6:15pm-6:45pm — Debrief with our technical trainer about the work session at the animal shelter

6:45pm-7pm — Walk to trolley bus stop and wait for next one we can take to get home

night

8pm — Arrive to my stop and walk to the apartment

8:15pm-9:00pm — Dinner with host mom and sister, where we chat about our days and I am fed some of the best food I’ve ever eaten

9:00pm-10:00pm — Work on things for the next day, such as language homework, English club planning; talk to my mom or friends on the phone

10:00pm-11:00pm — Watch Netflix or read to relax for bed

11:15pm — Sleep (ideally) since I’ll get up and do this schedule all over again!

This was my typical schedule for the work week, but we did get off early on Fridays to jump-start the weekend. Please feel free to reach out or comment if you have questions about PST!