As a large, prestigious university that prides itself on dwelling among the creme de la creme of higher education, UCSD loves rankings. It probably takes less than three clicks from any link on the UCSD Web site to access a page touting the newest ranking indicating UCSD’s achievements.

It’s not just U.S. News and World Report (where we’ve stayed at a steady No. 7 among the best publics all these years), but also lesser known ones, such as the London Times Higher Education Supplement, which recently ranked us 24th in the world. Or Shanghai’s Institute of Higher Education, which ranked us 13th in the world. Bravo, bravo. Hearty handshakes and pats on the back all around for reaffirming that UCSD is still an exemplar of trail-blazing research.

There is yet another ranking that marks UCSD’s achievements, but it has nothing to do with research funding dollars per faculty member. UCSD ranked among the top 25 large universities in alumni in the Peace Corps. Sending 43 students last year, UCSD ranked No. 73 overall among schools of all sizes.

The Peace Corps, for the uninitiated, is a government-run humanitarian organization begun by John F. Kennedy in 1960. It sends volunteers on two-year terms to developing countries to do anything from teach English to spread awareness of HIV/AIDS. Areas of service include education, business development, health, community development, information technology, environment and agriculture. A broad range of countries is available to volunteers, excluding only Western Europe and the United States. Volunteers in turn get free medical insurance, paid living and transportation expenses and student loan deferment.

The increase in UCSD volunteers is a sunny indication of both awareness of the Peace Corps on campus and increased desire of recent graduates to get out there and do something.

For soon-to-be graduates to decide to take two years out of their lives is quite a sacrifice — and in a foreign, developing country, at that. At the end of college, many students are caught offguard as they search for meaning in their future careers as well as in their lives. Internships, graduate or professional school — there’s a self-enforced agenda to set a seemingly immutable trajectory for life as we know it. Amid all the hustle and bustle over figuring out what to do, maybe these willing Peace Corps volunteers know a thing or two about purpose.

With commitment to the Peace Corps, students are also inadvertently enhancing the reputation and objectives of UCSD. The mission of the university, supposedly, is of course scholarship and research, followed by teaching and public service. Students embarking on Peace Corps stints seem to be contributing to this mission without even knowing it. UCSD as a whole is known for the strength of its science programs, which no doubt serves the public. But with freshly minted diplomas in hand, Peace Corps volunteers serve the world by giving themselves and their time.

Of course, this is all secondary and even irrelevant to the motivations to join the Peace Corps. Learning a new language? Helping others? Gaining life skills? Experiencing culture? I don’t pretend to know what it’s like or what it entails, since I’ve never been to a developing country. And community service to me has always been compartmentalized into the little “helping others” corner of my mind. A very little corner, next to the other little corner of academics and the big section of “having fun.” To venture into a rural area in a foreign land without a friend, in order to offer what little one has to others, is a fleeting imprint of idealism that few students truly entertain.

But you can’t say it’s the benefits that draw people to volunteer for the Peace Corps. Maybe it’s the desire to get away. No doubt the foray into Senegal or Brazil will be incredibly different from the seaside utopia of La Jolla. Insulated in the posh Golden Triangle, perhaps most of us don’t really know any world outside of suburbia. I personally often think of flying away and shedding the shelteredness. But when I really think about it, my own comfort zones have a way of expanding until the boundary between complacence and challenge can no longer be seen. So I surmise that the Peace Corps — at least what it stands for — elicits a need for courage that transcends any desire for paid expenses, loan deferment and the like.

I personally don’t have the courage to take two years to do that, though I am thinking about taking a year off and doing some kind of humanitarian work with a Christian organization in a developing country. At the risk of sounding arrogant, maybe it’s time for me to give back what I’ve been so graciously given. And I admire those who can commit more than that chunk of time to serving others.

E.B. White said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” The Peace Corps seems to do a good job of integrating both.

So UCSD is going up the ranks of sending bright, young, energetic new grads to use their skills to help others outside of the United States. Now that sounds like something to be proud of.