Volunteer Overseas (Score 1)

A CS degree may seem mundane, but the skills are in such demand you can do just about anything.

After graduating, I got sent overseas for six months to work for an AIDS-related organization in sub-Saharan Africa. The challenges were enormous and often unforeseeable; and while the job description suggested I would be doing nothing but programming, most of my job involved interacting with people.

For any white person volunteering overseas, the experience is extremely stressful and not at all glamourous--you won't save any lives, you won't earn bucketloads of cash, and congratulations will be few and far between. But overseas volunteers experience and learn things nobody else can possibly understand: your life would be changed forever.

Starting your search? In Canada, begin by looking for the CIDA internships page (the place to look); in the States, maybe investigate Peace Corps; in both, flip through CUSO-VSO and the myriad search websites Google will find for you. Organizations that pay you a stipend or salary are likely to provide both you and the recipient country with a much more useful placement (not to mention, they won't break the bank); unfortunately, though logically, those organizations are stricter about whom they interview and hire.

Watch the ground for snakes, and don't drink the water; why don't they teach this stuff in Computer Programming 101?