Interview with Conor

Last month we were lucky to have Conor Holton-Burke teach SAT math to students applying to US colleges soon. Most of my friends and relatives were really surprised and wondered why he would do that while on vacation, so I decided to interview Conor. Enjoy:

Lydia: How did you come up with the idea to do volunteer work while in Bulgaria?

Conor: When I initially decided to visit Bulgaria, I hadn't fully considered what I was going to do with my time. I knew I wanted to play a lot of tennis, but one cannot play tennis all day long. When I eventually thought about making my time in Bulgaria worthwhile, volunteering was honestly the first thing that came to mind, but I needed to find something that suited my skill set. My good friend Nasko (Atanas Atanasov) recommended that I could help Bulgarian students prepare for the SAT given my extensive standardized testing experience, so he put me in contact with you!

Lydia: Volunteering seems to be a hallmark of US culture. Why do people in USA volunteer? What do they do?

Conor: It is absolutely true that most students in the US spend a fair portion of their week volunteering. Though some volunteer purely out of the goodness of their hearts, most American students volunteer primarily because it serves their best interest. Students use their volunteer work to bolster their college, internship, grand, fellowship, and job applications; it has gotten to the point that any application would appear barren without at least some mention of volunteer work. Additionally, students are often taught from a young age that it is our duty to give back by volunteering as a way of giving thanks to the lives of privelege we were lucky enough to be born into. In my expereince as the philanthropy chair of my fraternity, I witnessed students volunteering in all kinds of ways: we organized a food drive, cleaned up a highway, restored a stream on several occasions, helped build a house in conjunction with habitat for humanity, helped pick up trash in our town center, etc. One of the most common ways for US students to volunteer, however, is by teaching. Many of my friends are just now entering yearlong English Teaching Assistantships in various countries or returning from summerlong Teach For America programs.

Lydia: Do you plan to do more volunteer work back in the US or in some other country?

Conor: I absolutely plan to volunteer back here in the US. This next year, I will be working at my former school (Whitman College), as I apply for medical schools. I'm hoping to work with the same organizations I worked with while I was philanthropy chair of my fraternity (doing the same sorts of activities I mentioned in my previous answer). If I'm lucky enough to become a doctor, I hope to spend a majority of my working life volunteering in places where doctors are most sorely needed, but that's a long ways off.