Roger Coupal

Peace Corps

How did the AREC program connect your service and help you prepare for your professional experiences?

I came back to school because throughout the last years of my undergraduate program and my two years in the Peace Corps I kept confronting both the role that markets and economic value of natural resources play in decision making and how the role that communities play building resource based developments. It became very apparent to me that communities are a group of people that on a daily basis make collective decisions amongst each other and outside their community, that may be competitive or market based in nature, or be jointly or cooperatively based decisions.Allocation of resources within a community and within that relevant functional space of a community, which can include areas and resource bases outside of city limits, can be different depending upon how decisions are made. Understanding the institutional structures that guide those decisions are vital to understanding how they use, allocate, and value resources.

Why would you recommend that an RPCV join our M.S. program?

I would recommend an RPCV join the MS-AREC program? It gives someone a strong background in applied economics that can be relevant to community issues