ABSTRACT
I remember very clearly the early-morning commercials for the U.S. Peace Corps that I saw as a kid in the 1970s that ended with the tagline, “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” These ads, along with the Army slogan “Be all that you can be,” (which I also saw on television around that time) planted the idea of doing something with my life that was both personally rewarding and larger than myself. In the 1990s, I actually did become a Peace Corps volunteer, and left New Jersey to teach science and mathematics in secondary schools in Kenya and Papua New Guinea. The ad was right; it was tough, and I loved it.
