Many college students are attracted to the idea of a job in international affairs. Such positions are indeed available, but it is difficult to get into an interesting career with only a B.A. degree. Either graduate education of some sort, direct job experience, or both are usually necessary.
It is not uncommon for people in international affairs to move from one type of career to another, from government to business, for example. Nonetheless, it seems useful to at least sketch the outlines of some of the major alternatives.
1.1 FOREIGN SERVICE
The best-known international career is undoubtedly diplomacy. The lead institution here is the Foreign Service of the United States. This group of about 3,000 people staffs American embassies abroad and the State Department in Washington. The Foreign Service offers an attractive career, but the selection process is extremely rigorous. Of the approximately 12,000 people who took the exam a few years ago, only about 200 were selected. The examination is interesting and free, so anyone interested should certainly take it, but realistically your chances are very slim indeed. The Foreign Service has been concerned about minority recruitment over the past few years, and such applications are particularly encouraged.
Entrance is by examination; there are no formal education requirements. The first stage is a written exam which takes all day and uses the format of the SATs and other exams from the Educational Testing Service. Those who receive the required minimum grade are invited to participate in the second stage, which is a series of simulations and exercises with other candidates.
The first examination strongly stresses knowledge of American history and culture rather than international relations or foreign countries. Many people think this is odd, but Foreign Service officers represent the United States and will often work with foreigners who have spent a lot of time studying this country; they must know their own history and culture very well indeed. If you are particularly interested in the Foreign Service, make sure you are knowledgeable about American history, literature, and philosophy. Language competence is required, although not necessarily at entry; nonetheless it makes sense to get it before the exams.
The State Department also includes many non-FSO positions, which are filled through traditional civil service paths.
1.2 OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
The bulk of people working in international affairs in Washington work for agencies other than the State Department. Unfortunately there is no single recruiting device such as the Foreign Service exam for these organizations. The biggest employers are the Defense Department (both military and civilian) and the intelligence organizations, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Information about careers can be obtained from the ROTC groups on campus. Civilians hired by the Defense Department tend to be people with particular specialties; advanced degrees are usually required. Given the informal hiring process, actual job experience, which in practice means internships, is very important.
Intelligence careers can be divided into analysts (people who work with secret material trying to decide its significance) and clandestine operators. Anyone interested in such positions should look at the book Careers in Secret Intelligence by David Atlee Phillips, a former C.I.A. officer; David Wise's "Campus Recruiting and the C.I.A..," New York Times Magazine, June 8, 1986 is also useful. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency both hire junior-level career people on the basis of exams; you should contact each agency separately to see what their current needs and procedures are. They also hire a lot of people with particular skills for analysis, usually with advanced degrees. They seem to be particularly interested in exotic languages, geographic area specializations, economics, political science, international relations, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and physical science. Again internships are particularly useful here.
The Agency for International Development (AID) administers American foreign aid and has a fairly large staff. In general, they seem to recruit people with technical training in areas like economics or agriculture. Their relationship with the State Department changes with each reorganization; if you are interested, you should contact them directly. Smaller organizations include the Peace Corps, the Export-Import Bank, the National Security Council, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the International Trade Commission, the US Information Agency , the Voice of America and the Office of the Special Trade Representative.
Many "domestic" executive agencies have international activities or offices; these are often small, but sometimes they offer interesting opportunities. Commerce, for example, is concerned with foreign trade, Agriculture with farm exports, Justice with international legal issues, the Treasury Dept. with international finance, etc. Other agencies that offer jobs related to international affairs include the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accounting Office.
The number of people on Congressional staffs concerned with international affairs has greatly increased in the past few years. There is no single recruiting process for such jobs; people are selected on the basis of contacts, past experience, and educational qualifications, roughly in that order. Internships are crucial for anyone interested in these sorts of positions.
Each state government has an agency devoted to the promotion of international trade and investment opportunities for firms and communities within that state. Some even have offices abroad and sponsor trade shows in other countries. Another possibility at the local level is in secondary education, where one can teach languages, history or social science. Teaching certification is usually required.
1.3 THE UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations, located in New York City, is a fascinating place to work, and it has lots of employees. However, jobs on its permanent staff are allocated on the basis of national quotas, since it is clearly inappropriate to have most jobs held by citizens of one of its members, and therefore it is difficult for American citizens to get hired. Anyone interested in such work should contact the Drew University United Nations Program, which runs an internship program there. Transfer credit can be arranged. It is also good experience to take part in Drake's Model United Nations program (contact Professor Debra DeLaet).
1.4 THE PRIVATE SECTOR: WASHINGTON
There are a large number of private research groups (often known as the Beltway Bandits, from their location around the Beltway ad their dependence on government contracts) and pressure groups of every political stripe in Washington with interests in foreign affairs. Hiring is informal, so internships are important for anyone interested.
1.5 THE PRIVATE SECTOR: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Multinational corporations play a prominent role in current international affairs. Most Americans tend to think in terms of working abroad for an American corporation, but in fact there may well be better opportunities working in the U.S., either for an American or perhaps even a foreign firm (of course, that may not be what you think of as an international job).
Americans who are sent abroad are often something of a trial for corporations. They are expensive, have a high failure rate (perhaps as high as 50%), don't want to stay long, don't know the language, and get into trouble. Thus most multinationals are moving toward developing indigenous managers (Norwegians to run Exxon Norway, Nigerians for the Coca Cola branch in Nigeria, etc.) and sending abroad only indispensable Americans, usually those with particular technical expertise. This will deprive American business of its major training ground for managers with international sophistication, which in the long run may be a problem for American competitiveness. In order to compete for one of the few foreign postings that will be filled by American personnel, it is likely that you will have to work at a company for a number of years in order to learn about the company, its business and its needs.
Business's actually like to hire liberal arts majors because they are exceedingly inexpensive compared to MBAs. So one can get a job in a corporation doing international business without doing additional graduate work, but you have to set your sights quite low, and it takes a lot of digging (and possibility moving around a couple of times) to get yourself placed. Places do not advertise jobs as having international opportunities, but the jobs are out there.
One thing to keep in mind is that international jobs are very unattractive for people with families (this is particularly true of jobs in the Third World), so a young person without family obligations will often have an advantage in getting these (i.e. the international jobs are not necessary "plums", but they are interesting). While American corporations are reluctant to send people for long-term positions, short-term jobs (six months - two years) seem to still be common, and one can often put together an assortment of these. Students are more likely to be competitive for positions in the Third World than in Europe. European jobs are very attractive but the Europeans, who tend to speak at least two or three European languages, tend to be far better at them than Americans. But go to the Third World, and Americans tend to be more competitive, and oftentimes, due to the multicultural environment of the US, tend to feel more comfortable than Europeans do; also US students have about the same opportunities to learn Arabic or Hindu or Chinese or Hausa as the average European, so they aren't at an immediate disadvantage in language.
The other side of the coin, of course, is that foreign companies doing business in the U.S. hire lots of Americans. Moreover, an increasing percentage of American corporations do business abroad, so much "normal business" in the U.S. involves international issues. In general, if you want to go into business, you need a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the best business school you can get into; this degree and some alternatives are discussed later. If you're interested in working for a foreign company, knowledge of its language and culture can be invaluable, but it is no substitute for business training. nobody is going to hire you just because you know the appropriate language; they have to also think you will raise their profits.
Among businesses, international banks have been the most willing to hire people without business degrees; they expect to have to train you regardless of your background. Another alternative is analyzing the political risks of investments in particular countries. There are some jobs here within corporations and at consulting firms. However, relatively few people have been hired, and it's not clear that they will be able to move up to other jobs within the organization. Another career area many students overlook lies in the travel industry. One can find interesting jobs organizing cruises or package tours to foreign locations.
1.6 THE PRIVATE SECTOR: NON-PROFIT
There are literally hundreds of private, volunteer organizations which work in international affairs; they are so important that they have been awarded the ultimate distinction of their own acronym, PVOs. Some of the PVOs are religious in origin; others are entirely secular. Some are quite large, others are minuscule. They share a lack of direct government control and general concern for humanitarian issues. Prominent examples include Crossroads Africa, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, and Maryknoll. The American government administers some foreign aid through some of these agencies, and they have been prominent in such issues as famine relief in Africa. The PVOs overlap somewhat with private advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International. Many of these organizations employ small permanent staffs; recruitment is often based on previous performance as a volunteer. Salaries are low, but many people find the work extremely rewarding.
1.7 UNIVERSITY TEACHING AND RESEARCH
American universities serve, among other things, as repositories for international expertise. Faculty work within departments, usually organized around the major disciplines such as economics, political science, and history. Their job consists of teaching (communicating skills and knowledge to students) and research (creating new knowledge and communicating it to others). University faculty usually have a great deal of freedom in selecting what they will research ad teach, enabling them to develop specialized knowledge in a wide variety of areas.
For the past fifteen years or so, university teaching jobs have been quite scarce, making it hard to encourage undergraduates to aim toward such careers. However, it now seems likely that in the middle of the 1990s there will be increased demand for college teachers as the next baby boom reaches college age and a large number of current college faculty retire. (However, some recent research suggests that there will be less change in political science than in other disciplines.) Therefore, college teaching has become a more reasonable career choice for current undergraduates. The only relevant degree for college teaching is the Ph.D.; go to the most famous university you can get into, and you won't go far wrong.
Internships are a critical supplement to any sort of education background to get interesting jobs in international affairs. Because of the informal hiring process, personal contacts are indispensable. Most [Drake] students don't have close relatives high up in these organizations; internships are the next best thing. Internships give students direct experience in job situations. Students learn for themselves whether they like this sort of work and what is required to make a career in it. Often they also get direct job offers. If not, they make personal contacts and get recommendations from job supervisors; if nothing else, they have something on their record which distinguishes them from the thousands of other people who will graduate with B.A. degrees from state universities at the same time.
Two general rules of internships: anything is better than nothing, and the longer the better. Summer internships are the most common, and if that's all you can get, take it. However, you should be aware of some limitations of summer internships. You will not be in Washington long. Moreover, summer interns are so common that they are often used by offices as clerical labor, people to run xerox machines, address envelopes, etc. Many students use the experience for socializing, which is fine but detracts from the image of those with more serious interests. Lastly, so many students take summer internships now that employers are less impressed than previously.
Aside from internships, another useful post-graduate experience involves teaching English in foreign countries. The Japanese government, for instance, sponsors the JET program, in which English speaking foreign students serve as assistants to English instructors in Japanese high schools. Other countries have similar programs. There also exist private English training schools in Japan and elsewhere that prepare junior business executives with major corporations who will soon be transferred to the U.S. or on their way to attend an American MBA program. Salaries for teachers in these positions can be quite attractive.
2.1 WASHINGTON INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS
Many schools, such as American University or the Institute for Experiential Learning in Washington D.C., run programs that combine government or non-profit internships with course work. It is generally possible to transfer credit from these programs back to your home institution.
2.2 INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE: THE PEACE CORPS
Internships in Washington are extremely useful, but they are not the same as experience abroad. The Peace Corps offers one such opportunity. The Peace corps is an agency of the U.S. government which sends Americans abroad, usually for two years to Third World countries, to help the people of other countries toward economic and social development. volunteers often work on their own in rigorous physical conditions. Aside from living abroad, Peace Corps people get independent management experience at a very young age. As a result, Peace Corps experience is highly valued by employers hiring for international jobs. Many PVOs also provide similar opportunities.
3. ALTERNATE EDUCATIONAL TRACKS
There is no single educational path to international jobs; in fact, it's quite common for people in the same position to have very different sorts of educational backgrounds. Moreover, there are a lot of people in interesting jobs with only B.A. degrees (and sometimes without them). However, either graduate education or experience (preferably both is usually essential to get access to these positions.
3.1 LAW SCHOOL
A lot of very senior people in international affairs are lawyers, but on balance law school is probably not the most efficient way to start a career in international affairs. Law school is three years of a curriculum which is mostly irrelevant to international relations. It is hard to get into good law schools, and there is usually no financial aid except for loans. The current surplus of lawyers means that law school graduates are now having serious trouble getting jobs. It's true that you may be able to get an interesting non-legal job with a law degree, since employers figure you must be reasonably intelligent if you have survived law school, but there are other alternatives. Some law school programs allow you to pursue a joint degree in law and a masters in international relations. These programs usually require four years to complete.
....Careers
There is a good deal of confusion about international law as a career. It is convenient to divide international law into public and private. Public international law is concerned with whether or not the behavior of governments corresponds with international law. This is what the term international law means to most people, but there are very few institutions which will pay people to do such analysis. The State Department keeps about eighty lawyers on staff for this purpose, but most of the other people in the field teach in universities (probably as many in political science departments as in law schools).
Most international lawyers are concerned with private international law, how individuals and corporations can carry on transactions within different and sometimes conflicting legal systems. If a tanker registered in Liberia and owned by a company in the Bahamas carrying a load of oil owned by an American corporation hits a Soviet submarine and dumps its oil into Belgian beaches, who pays what to whom? Private international law is popular because people and organizations will pay money to get answers to these sorts of questions. This kind of work in turn sometimes leads to other things; international lawyers often serve as representatives for multinational corporations to the public and governments, a kind of business diplomatic corps. Nonetheless, international law is a fairly minor branch of law, and this is reflected in law school curricula; if you get two international law courses in three years you'll be doing well.
On balance, then, law school is the best alternative for anyone who wants to practice private international law, but you must remember that you have to be a lawyer first and an international lawyer second. If you want to study public international law, you may actually do better in a Ph.D. program in political science specializing in international law, although there are very few places in the U.S. where this is a serious alternative; your career will presumably involve working in a university as a teacher-researcher, either in political science or, less likely, in law school.
There is no pre-law curriculum in the United States; essentially law schools will take you regardless of your major if your grade point average and law board scores are high enough. inasmuch as curriculum makes a difference, they prefer students with broad interests in the liberal arts and tend to frown on professional degrees. In particular they recommend that you do not take law courses before you get to law school, arguing (probably correctly) that we will just teach you incorrectly and that they will have to undo all the damage we have caused. However, anyone interested in law school should take one course which requires intensive reading of cases, just to see if you can tolerate it for three years, since that is what you do in law school. Such courses can be found in the political science and philosophy departments at the 300 and 400 level.
3.2 GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL
Law school is often attractive to students who want to get an "interesting" job but don't want to be lawyers. For such students business school is often a better bet. It takes two rather than three years, it is a little easier to get into a good one (being female helps in business school admissions; law schools admissions are mostly sex-blind), and there are still jobs for new MBA graduates (although for several years there have been rumblings that this market also will be saturated). The jobs aren't limited to corporations either; American business schools claim to teach management, the coordination of people and resources to accomplish a given goal, which is what all large organizations try to do. As a result, government and even non-profit institutions are hiring business school graduates for jobs which, twenty years ago, would probably have gone to lawyers. Most people now assume that MBA graduates, like lawyers, are intelligent, and as a bonus they may even have some useful skills.
Unlike law schools, most business schools have a separate department called International Business. However, these departments are not usually highly regarded within their own schools, in part because they do not rely heavily on econometrics and are therefore thought to be "soft." Moreover, there are very few jobs for new MBAs with International Business majors. As explained above very few young Americans are now set abroad by corporations. Therefore you have to get hired by the corporation for your substantive skills; later you can try to develop a special interest in the international side of things. The recommended strategy is to take a double major in a substantive area (marketing, finance, management, etc.) and International Business.
Among the "regular" business schools, the best by reputation are Harvard and Stanford; New York University has been cited as the best in international business, and Yale's School of Organization and management is an interesting attempt to combine training in business and public affairs. There are also a couple of programs especially geared to students interested in international business. The American Graduate School of International Business, just outside of Phoenix, more familiarly known as Thunderbird, is the only major business school in the country not affiliated with a university, and it has developed an impressive reputation for training high quality personnel in international business. The University of South Carolina business school has developed a program which requires a foreign business internship. Both of these programs stress language competence. Their reputation also attracts recruiters looking for people with these sorts of interests. However, they offer a Masters degree which is not an MBA, which is usually a drawback. Outside of these programs, an advanced business degree that is not an MBA isn't worth much.
For many undergraduates the major drawback of graduate business school is its heavy reliance on economics and mathematics. Anyone interested in business school should take microeconomics and macroeconomics (the order doesn't matter) and several advanced economics courses to see how well they do and whether or not they are comfortable with that mode of analysis. An economics major is not necessary for graduate business school, and an undergraduate business degree is usually not recommended. Note that graduate business schools have their own standardized tests, the Graduate Management Admissions Test.
3.3 POLITICAL SCIENCE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
Every major American university has a political science graduate program awarding a Ph.D. degree, and international relations is a field within almost all these departments. Many departments also award a Masters of Arts degree but this is not particularly useful. The Ph.D. requires two to three years of coursework, followed by comprehensive examinations and a thesis, which usually takes another year or two full-time; obviously the time will be longer if you have to go part-time because of limited resources.
The Ph.D. degree is basically a research degree. It is essential for anyone who wants to teach at a college or university, and it is often found among researchers and analysts working for the government as well. On the other hand, the degree is given in political science; you can concentrate in international relations, but you are required to take courses and examinations in other fields as well. Moreover, it takes longer to get than any other option discussed here, and it's not clear that it's worth the extra effort and money unless you're going into college teaching. One group of Foreign Service examiners, when asked how useful graduate school would be, said that the coursework would be useful, but that the candidate would do better spending a couple of years in the Foreign Service than working on a doctoral dissertation. Several programs retraining people with Ph.D. degrees to go into business have been fairly successful, but this is a pretty roundabout way to get into business; if that's what you want, try for graduate business school.
A major in political science is not required for admission to graduate programs in the discipline, but you should take at least enough courses to decide if you want to do this full-time for a long time; the biggest difference between graduate and undergraduate work is that you have to live one subject twenty-four hours a day. Admission is usually based on grade point average, Graduate Record Examination (yet another standardized test) scores, and faculty recommendations. In general the best departments are found in the leading universities. If you want more specific guidance, talk to political science faculty; this is one subject they know something about, and they will be current on the varying reputations of political science programs around the country.
3.4 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS SCHOOLS
As noted above, every major American university awards the Ph.D. degree in political science. However, a few universities also have schools or programs centered around at two-year interdisciplinary Masters program in international affairs. Originally these schools were designed to produce candidates for the Foreign Service. However, since so few applicants are accepted and since admission is now by examination, these schools have altered their focus and now try to prepare students to work for other government agencies and for international business as well; Georgetown, for example, recently renamed its program "International Business Diplomacy."
The curriculum stresses international politics, history, and economics; in addition area specialization is often available. These schools also take placement seriously, an important point to consider. If you're interested in working for the government in international affairs, one of these schools may be your best bet. I'm less certain about the utility of their degrees in business. There is no question that their graduates get jobs with major corporations. However, it's less clear that the degree will suffice for a business career or whether people who have gotten jobs with this degree may have to go back to business school later on.
There are relatively few of these institutions. Two do not specialize exclusively in international affairs but include domestic concerns as well: the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. The best of the schools that specialize in international affairs are: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; School of International Studies, Columbia University; and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Somewhere in here is the International Relations Program at Yale, which is much smaller than the others and allows students to essentially custom tailor their education. One a somewhat lower prestige level are the international affairs schools at George Washington University, University of Southern California, University of Maryland, American University and the University of Denver, as well as the Patterson School at the University of Kentucky. Those looking for something a little different might investigate the School for International Training in Battleboro, Vermont, which offers an innovative Masters Degree in Intercultural Management. This is good preparation if, for instance, you want to run a study abroad program at a college or university.
In most universities, there are exchange agreements which allow you to study at foreign universities for the same price in tuition as one would pay at home. So, the only additional expense is the airfare. Study abroad will not only expose you to a foreign culture but you will typically meet students from a variety of different countries also studying abroad and it provides a base for further travel (study abroad programs typically having rather generous amounts of vacation time built in). Study abroad programs vary in many ways: living arrangements (apartment on your own, dorm with either local students or other foreign students, stay with host family), language requirements (some are taught in English, others in the language of the host country), curriculum (in some programs, you will choose from a limited menu of course available only to those in the program; in others, you can take courses at the local university with the regular students) and thematic focus (e.g., business, culture, politics, language, etc.).
4.2 INDEPENDENT TRAVEL ABROAD
In the age of the chartered jumbo jet, getting overseas is quite inexpensive and once one is abroad, a student can usually live about as cheaply (or in the Third World, often much more cheaply) than in the USA. Foreign travel is important for getting over the initial fear of not being able to cope with a place where you can't speak the language (this is the biggest barrier for most Americans) and if you have the chance to travel fairly widely, you can get an idea of what areas you feel comfortable in and which you don't (this varies a lot with the individual). Also it is important to get some experience before you invest a lot of additional effort in professional training. Students sometimes invest a lot of time learning the history and language of a region in the abstract, but then simply can't cope with it in reality (Africa and the former USSR seem particularly problematic in this regard, though many other students love these places; I also gather India is a rather intense experience...).
There is a huge amount of student lore about foreign travel; the Let's Go series is good for the more conventional destinations; the Lonely Planet series is good for the Third World; both are oriented to student travel.
Knowledge of a foreign language is an important asset for many international careers. While it is true that a tremendous amount of business and diplomacy is conducted in English, I think employees look at additional language training as a sign of sincere commitment (and probably also as a sign of an ability to master something concrete) in the international field. The nontraditional languages -- Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Hindi -- definitely have something going for them, though French and Spanish are also useful in a wide variety of places and students are more likely to have preparation in those from high school.
6. PREPARING FOR THESE CAREERS AT DRAKE
Drake has a number of programs that provide good preparation for students interested in pursuing careers in international affairs. Among these are majors in International Relations, International Business, Political Science, Drake University Language Acquisition Program and Latin American Studies. Some students choose to combine two of these, e.g., International Relations and a foreign language major. Numerous internship and study abroad opportunities also exist.
"Careers and the Study of Political Science: A Guide for Undergraduates," published by the American Political Science Association, 5th edition.
Stephen Frantzich, "Storming Washington: An Intern's Guide to National Government," published by the American Political Science Association, 5th edition.
"Guide to Careers in World Affairs," published by the Foreign Policy Association, 3rd edition.
Ken Brown, "Cold War Over, Foreign Affairs Schools Refocus," New York Times, November 17, 1993
David Jones and Teresa Jones, "Clearing the Final Hurdle: Reinventing the Final Exam," Foreign Service Journal, vol. 64, no. 11, November 1992 (on how the Foreign Service oral exam has been revised)
David Atlee Phillips, Careers in Secret Intelligence
David Wise, "Campus Recruiting and the C.I.A..," New York Times Magazine, June 8, 1986