Jordyn Hoff: From Soccer Fields to Botswana - A Journey Through the Peace Corps

Jordyn Hoff, newly returned from two and a half years in the Peace Corps, reflects on her path from growing up in Seattle and Portland to ASU and international service. A quiet kid who became a vocal soccer goalkeeper, she explains how sports built leadership, communication, and teamwork skills she later used in college and abroad. In college, she switched majors from anthropology to criminal justice to public policy before settling on nonprofit leadership and management, joined Rise Tutoring with refugees, did undergraduate research, and ran a Blaze Radio show about horror movies. After a study abroad internship in Cape Town, she served in Botswana as an HIV/AIDS life skills educator in a primary school, describing culture shock, language learning, isolation, and community life. Her advice: try everything, plan early, seek scholarships, listen first, and focus on helping individuals rather than “saving the world.”