 Good morning everyone and welcome to day two of the HBCU foreign policy conference. I know you've heard a lot yesterday about foreign policy and the wonderful things the State Department is doing. This morning we are bringing to you, we're coming to you from the Office of the Recruitment so we can tell you how to get started, how to actually join if you wanted to join in this wonderful enterprise. We have two sessions this morning, both led by the Office of Recruitment. One, the first one, this first hour is going to be focusing on student programs, which is a great way to get your foot in the door at the U.S. Department of State. We're going to, on the second session, we're going to speak to you about how to get started, actually how to apply for student programs, how to even start with U.S.A. jobs, how to even get your profile set up on USAJobs.gov. My name is Nathan Bland, and I am the diplomat in residence for the Central South region. What a diplomat in residence is, is we are basically State Department recruiters and we each have our own regional areas of responsibility. So my area of responsibility is Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. So a warm welcome to everyone joining us, and an especially warm welcome to those coming from the South. My colleague, I'm joined today by my colleague and co-presenter, her name is Dr. Yolanda Kearney, who's also a diplomat in residence. Yolanda. Good morning everyone, and again welcome to day two of the HBCU Foreign Policy Conference. I know that we have lots of HBCU folks out there. I'm a very, very proud Howard alumnus, so any bison out there, H-U to all of you. So we're really excited to tell you about what the State Department is all about. I've served in the State Department for just over 16 years. My career has been spent largely in Western Hemisphere and South Saharan Africa, and now finally back in Washington, D.C. Thank you. So my colleague and I will be with you for both of these sessions, both me and Yolanda. And since this first session is focused on student programs, we are also joined by three co-presenters who will speak specifically about programs that they work on themselves. So first we have Ms. Anastasia Almanzar. Good morning everybody, my name is Anastasia Almanzar. I am the Acting Program Manager for the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program. I'm very delighted to be here and talk about my program. I've been with the State Department for a little bit over 11 years, and I've had the opportunity to serve both in the Foreign Service and the Civil Service. Thank you. Thank you. We also have Ms. Brea Wilson. Hello everyone, my name is Brea Wilson, and I'm with the Student Internship Program Unpaid. I started with the State Department in 2018 as a Pathways Intern. So, yay to the internships. But I'm delighted to be here as well, and I hope that you all enjoy. And finally we have Ms. Megan Kuhn. Good morning. I work on the Virtual Student Federal Service Internship Program. And I would say my career highlight is having attended the same Civil Service training with one of my former virtual interns. I became Civil Service at the same time in April 2020. Wow. Thank you, Megan. And in addition, in the chat box, you'll see that my colleague, another diplomat in residence who is responsible for the South. So Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, those states over there. His name is Mr. Alan DuBose, and he will be interacting with you. They're dropping links to various things that we speak about in additional information, and also answering certain questions that you may have. And if you have any questions for any of us or the panelists, feel free to put them in the chat box, add your name and your location that you're writing from. And my other colleague, Ms. Debbie Faltz, who is also moderating the chat box, she's a national recruiter. She will get those questions to us and we'll take those questions at the end of the presentation. So, and finally, we'll also put a tiny URL link in the chat box. My colleague Alan will put that in there. That link is a link to our recruitment database. So if this conference has inspired you to join this type of profession, this organization, if you're interested in foreign policy and international relations, please sign up at that link. It's a link to our recruitment database, so you'll be connected to us. You'll receive information about things that open, like when the application period is open for certain programs, when we're doing certain information sessions that may be of interest to you, you'll receive that kind of contact. So my colleague Alan will put that in the chat box. And finally, let me tell you about the structure of this morning's presentation. So we're going to do a quick PowerPoint presentation. At the beginning, I'll be starting broad, I'll introduce us as an institution. I will speak about the basics, who we are, what we are, what we do, where we do it, how we do it, those types of things. And then we'll start to narrow in on student programs. We'll speak about the careers and then go more in detail into the student programs and each of my colleagues will speak about their individual programs as well. And then we'll wrap that up and then go into Q&A. So if you have any questions along the way, please feel free to put it in the chat box and put your name and where you are right from. And now I will launch into our presentation. Okay. So first, a little bit about myself. Who am I? I am a Foreign Service Officer. I've been, and that's what we call our diplomats. I'm sure you've heard from several Foreign Service Officers yesterday. I've been in the Foreign Service for over 16 years now. I've served abroad in China. It was my first assignment for two years. Then I was in Italy for two years at our U.S. Embassy to the Vatican. And then I was back in our headquarters for three years in Washington, D.C. And then I went out to Belize, our U.S. Embassy in Belize for three years. And then I went to Mexico City for two and a half years. And now I'm here in Louisiana. I'm based at Tulane University. So most of the diplomats and residences, we are resident at a university. I'm based at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I'm actually from Louisiana. I grew up in a small town called Leesville, Louisiana in the Northwest. My family's from Lafayette, Louisiana in the Southwest. My father is from Mississippi, so I'm right at home. And I'm happy to be here to speak to people in my region about our career opportunities and our student programs. I'm from Louisiana, but I'm a military class. So my parents were both in the U.S. Army, and I was born in Nuremberg, Germany. And then moved to Louisiana when I was in second grade, and then moved to another military base around sixth grade and then back to Louisiana. But that upbringing kind of lent to a career like this, because one already had international exposure early on. Two, I knew what it was like to live in a public service family. And three, I knew what it was like to move around every two to three years. So that's basically what we do now in the Foreign Service. We continue to move around from embassy to embassy every two to three years working for the U.S. government. That's a little bit about me, and I'll allow my co-presenter to speak about herself. I am also a Foreign Service Officer. I cover the D.C. Metro region, so I covered D.C., Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia. I joined the Foreign Service when Colin Powell was our Secretary of State. He was very much the face of our recruitment at the time. Colin Powell said that he needed me and my voice, and I said, okay, Colin, here I come. I'm a Public Diplomacy Career Tracker Officer. And my tours, as I said, have been in Washington, in the Western Hemisphere, and in sub-Saharan Africa. I've spent six years in the Caribbean, in Jamaica and Barbados, in the Eastern Caribbean. My African tours include Guinea-Connacree, Cameroon, the DR Congo. I am a Floridian. I am the proudest Howard University alum. There may be people who think that they are, but you're mistaken. Again, I just want to invite everyone, those of our HBCU folks, we know how we do. We bring a little spice to it. So if you're representing today for your HBCU, I would love to see where you're from in the chat. Thank you. Now, who we are. So the U.S. Department of State, as an institution, we are the nation's oldest cabinet agency. And by cabinet agency, of course, I mean like the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Treasury. We, the U.S. Department of State, we were the first. Our role in the federal government is to lead on U.S. foreign policy engagement and diplomatic engagement. So anything related to international relations, our relations with other countries, our foreign policy efforts. All of that has to flow through the U.S. Department of State at some point or another. We protect the interests of U.S. citizens abroad and U.S. citizens here, obviously. If you look at the bottom, you'll see our primary mission is to promote peace and stability in areas of vital interest to America and build a freer and more prosperous and secure world. So that's actually a mission statement that speaks volumes, really, and it spoke to me. You know, I always knew I wanted to do a job that was bigger than me and was bigger than just working for somebody's bottom line. And this is that type of career. So if you're interested in this, please do give us a look. Some of our earlier diplomats include people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and I like to leave these two photos on this slide to show people what our diplomatic corps looked like for the longest time. I mean, not necessarily in those outfits, but it was a pretty homogenous group, right? People used to say that the U.S. Department of State was pale, male, and from Yale, basically saying that they were white men from the Northeast. But that's not who we are today, nor is it who we strive to be. One of our top priorities in recruiting is to recruit for diversity so that our diplomatic corps can truly reflect all of America's richness. Our Secretary of State always says that if we are not taking full advantage of America's richness and diversity, it's like fighting a battle with one arm tied behind our back. And so we are on the look for gender diversity, racial and ethnic diversity, geographic diversity, socioeconomic diversity is very important to our institution. To understand and improve a diverse world, we ourselves must also be diverse. And all academic disciplines are useful in the department. Speaking of the Secretary of State, you saw, you heard from him yesterday. Our current Secretary of State, Secretary Tony Blinken, his role is to serve as basically the president's right-hand person on anything foreign policy related. So he serves as the principal advisor to the president on foreign policy issues. He coordinates foreign policy issues on behalf of the U.S. government, implements the president's vision, foreign policy visions and decisions abroad, and protects U.S. interests abroad. Other Secretaries of State you may remember include people like Secretary John Kerry, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the gentleman who Yolanda just spoke about who I came in under as well, was Secretary of State General Colin Powell. Where we are, we are located all around the world. We are truly a global organization. We have 276 posts in 191 countries. And by posts, I mean both our embassies and our U.S. consulates and missions. So an embassy, you can think of that as our main presence overseas in a foreign country. And it's usually going to be located in the capital city of that foreign country. The U.S. consulates, you can think of those as embassy branches, like little mini embassies, in case we need additional presence in that foreign country. So if the country is big enough, or it has other cities that are important enough that we need an additional U.S. presence there, then we can open a U.S. consulate there. For example, in China, we have our U.S. embassy in the capital in Beijing. And then we have U.S. consulates in cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenyang, where I was, Guangzhou, and so on. Our headquarters is located in Washington, D.C. It's called the Harry S. Truman Building. It's this building right here. Most of us will have to work there at some point or another in our careers. We go abroad, we live most of our careers in the Foreign Service. We live most of our careers working abroad, but we do need to come back and work at headquarters at certain times. And we have passport agencies and other field offices located all throughout the United States. I will turn it over to my colleague, Yolanda, now to explain this org chart. This is an organizational chart of an embassy itself to give you an insight, look at that. So we've talked about embassies and consulates and field offices. What you need to remember is that the ambassador is the chief of mission and then outside of the United States ambassador is the president's representative. So at an embassy, we have a country team. It's a little snapshot of the U.S. government and our presence in that country. You may have several parts of the U.S. government represented. Over here on the right, you'll see USAID may be present. Commerce, Agriculture, Department of Defense. I came from Library of Congress before I joined the Foreign Service. Library of Congress has overseas representation. So when you're thinking about the United States government as a snapshot in country, it's going to be headed by the ambassador, the president's representative, and that ambassador is going to be the chief of mission. So a mission may be to a country, like Nathan just explained, our mission to China. And it also may be to an institution or an organization. So we have a mission to, for example, NATO. You may have seen some of that this week. So within the mission, the deputy chief of mission, the ambassador's deputy or lieutenant, is sort of responsible for all the day-to-day carrying out of what happens in the mission. For the Foreign Service officer side of the house, we're in five career tracks. And so you see them listed here, management, consular, public diplomacy, economics, and political. So I'm going to start with the officers first, and then let's talk, or generalist, and then let's talk about specialists who are diplomats with special skills. Management officers are responsible for all things internal to the embassy. They're like our chief operating officers. So everything that makes the embassy run are human resources, our financial management, all the logistics. When Nathan and Anastasia and I move abroad, someone has to make sure that we have a house to live in when we get there. Someone has to make sure that our kids have a way to get to school and that the school is paid for, all of that. So all the logistics, that's all under management. Every embassy or consulate has a med unit that can make sure that we are staying healthy. My son is 14 and he's had all of his childhood inoculations at embassies abroad, actually. We have community liaison officers who help make sure that we are having fun in our time off and make sure that all the things that need to happen with the family have a focal point. And then finally, facilities management, very important. They're the people who make sure that everything at our embassy and at our homes that are leased after they continue to work and run. Consular officers are really the backbone of the Foreign Service is what we do. Every Foreign Service officer is a consular officer because there's no place in the world that an American citizen might not find him or herself imperiled. So the primary service that we provide is American citizen services. You may have recently seen that the United States carried out the largest repatriation of American citizens of in recorded history. And that was when we were bringing American citizens home during COVID. So if you've lost your passport, if you've been abroad, if you have unfortunately been the victim of crime, you're going to go to your embassy and a consular officer is going to say, let me help you. Beyond that, domestically and abroad, there are other citizenship services that we carry out. Again, lost passports, but also if you haven't lost your passport and you're applying for them in the United States, that goes to our passport agencies. We're going to talk about internships later, but a reminder that you can intern not just at our embassies and consulates or at our headquarters. You can also apply to intern at our passport agencies around the country. When it comes to things like, oh, I don't know, I'm living abroad, but I want to make sure that my federal benefits are being administered. It's at the consular section that our American citizens find that kind of support. Importantly, our consular officers make sure that people who want to visit the United States are doing so for bona fide reasons. So the adjudication of visas is very important. That's a core mission that we carry out in our consular services. In my own career track of public diplomacy, we tend to be in two sort of tranches. On the one side of the house, there's educational and cultural affairs. So Nathan said earlier that all academic disciplines are useful in the State Department. I'll use myself as an example. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are music history and literature. I was a music historian at the Library of Congress before I joined the Foreign Service. My doctorate is in religious studies. While it's cool to study international affairs, it's important to know that you don't have to be an international affairs officer to join the State Department. So on the one side, if you have seen programs like Fulbright and we hope that you will apply to go abroad and study under Fulbright, or if you've seen Fulbrighters on your campus who are either researching or studying, those programs are carried out by public affairs sections around the world. We find those wonderful scholars, we vet them, and we send them to the United States. Likewise, visiting artists in other countries are often sort of managed and placed by public affairs sections around the world. On the other side of the house for public diplomacy is press and media affairs. So everything that's public facing our embassy websites, our social media sites, frequently the public affairs officer will serve as the ambassador's principal speechwriter. So everything that's public facing comes through the public affairs section. And then we have lots of things called American spaces. There are four host country nationals so that they can access information, accurate information about American culture and about American resources. So these are more than libraries. They are places where people in a lot of places find the only unfettered internet access in country, for example. Our econ and political sections, I'll put them together. First on the economics side of the house and Nathan is an econ officer, so he's going to make sure I get all this information, right? Our econ officers do all the things that you would normally expect, macro, microeconomics, looking at trade and commercial interest. Obviously all of that information is sent back to Washington so that policy can be accurately crafted and implemented based on accurate information. But also if you are interested in, you know, what do I take my STEM field background? If you have a STEM background but you don't necessarily want to be a practitioner and you're like, who does that in the State Department? This is where under econ you will find environment, science, technology and health. And they nest under econ because each of those things has a nexus with the economy. You can't have a strong economy if you don't have a healthy population, for example. You can't have a strong economy if the technology in your country is not up to snuff. So if you are thinking about who's looking at 5G globally as a policy issue, it's our econ officers under ESTH. Who's looking at, oh, I don't know, COVID mitigation as a policy issue. It's our health officers under econ. If you have an interest in climate change, this is where you're going to take your STEM background and apply that for policy. If you are, what about animal poaching? Who's looking at that from a policy issue standpoint? It's our econ officers. Political officers are what most people think of when you say foreign service officer, stripe suits, perhaps. In a nutshell, our political officers are going to give you the so what. CNN is going to tell you that there are tires burning outside the embassy and that's going to be true. The political officer is going to tell you so what? What does that mean? They're going to give you the analysis. Is it that the opposition has mounted a coup? That's why tires are burning outside the embassy? Or is it perhaps teachers have not been paid in six weeks? They and their students are protesting. Our political officers provide that ground truth, that accuracy for the information that we're looking for and that analysis. They're going to provide the so what. If that interests you to really get down into the weeds about what's happening on the ground, then political work may be for you. Our regional security officers, our diplomatic security officers are the people who make all of this possible by keeping us safe, domestically and abroad. So domestically, part of what they do is they provide security for our secretary of state and visiting dignitaries. So when you've seen prime ministers who are visiting, it's actually not secret service. It's providing that service and protection for them. It's our diplomatic security. Overseas, again, they're responsible for everyone under the chief of mission under the ambassador and making sure that we stay safe for our homes, our schools, where our kids go to school, our offices, etc. We want to talk to you today about the various opportunities to join the State Department or to, you know, test us out, take us for a test drive as an intern, perhaps. I just told you about foreign service officers. We talked a little bit about specialist but I want to really delve into that a little bit more. Our IT professionals are among the best in the world. When you think about folks who may want to listen in to our conversations or make sure that they're able to access our information, our IT professionals are making sure that all of our communications stay safe. There are more than 90 platforms that the State Department uses across various sections and our IT professionals are responsible for all of them. If you know someone or you yourself are interested in taking your IT skills or cybersecurity skills on the road at an embassy or a consulate, then IT jobs in the State Department may be for you. We talked a little bit about the engineers that we have. Our facility managers are amazing. In some cases we build gorgeous embassies and countries that don't always have the infrastructure to support those embassies. We build that infrastructure from top to bottom and then once they are actually built, they have to be maintained. Our facility managers are core to that. I mentioned earlier that every embassy or consulate has a health unit. We have regional health officers who help to keep us safe and healthy. We have regional psychiatrists who help to keep us healthy in that way. We take mental wellness very seriously in the Foreign Service or in the State Department. I talked a little bit about our special agents as well. Those are our diplomatic security and on the administrative side. Our administrative professionals are the best in the world. We have office managers who frequently serve as the ambassador's confidential assistant. They are responsible for making sure that records are retired on a regular basis. And obviously we deal with a lot of classified information that all of that information remains safe as it should. We are the interface between our IT folks, so end user issues. They have certifications and several Microsoft platforms for example. So these are very, very serious administrative professionals. Largely also we have folks who work with our financial management officers. If I'm going to pay folks at various embassies in a country where perhaps the exchange rate against the dollar is going to fluctuate three, four times a day. Landa does not have to worry about how that happens. Our wonderful financial management officers are responsible for that. And then our human resource officers are also part of this administration umbrella. The labor laws vary from country to country as an end user of those services, if you will. I don't have to worry about what the labor laws are. Our human resource officers are responsible for making sure that all of our HR processes are carried out at our embassies and our consulates. So you should know that there are two major ways to enter the State Department. On the Foreign Service side, our testing processes and our entry processes are going to be found on careers.state.gov. If you plan to become a Foreign Service officer, you can sit the exam. There's a written exam as the entry to that process that's offered in February, June, and October. Our Foreign Service specialist jobs rotate in some cases. Some are open all the time. Our office management specialists are open for applications all the time. Our IT professionals are open for vacancy announcements all the time. Others have vacancy announcements that come and go, and they are placed on USAJobs. That's the Office of Personal Management main page. And we're going to talk a little bit later about how to approach that being USAJobs. We have non-limited career appointments up to 60 months, up to five years, for people who already have language, strong language skills in Mandarin, Portuguese, Arabic, and Spanish. This is a wonderful way to give the Foreign Service a test drive, if you will. So if you already speak high levels of Mandarin, Portuguese, Arabic, or Spanish, it may be possible for you to be a contracted, a limited Foreign Service officer to come in and adjudicate visas and work on consular issues in those languages. We'll talk a little bit about that later also. And most importantly, I know many of you have asked us, the diplomats and residents, about the student programs. There are many of them and they are all wonderful. Our colleagues here today are going to give you some information about how you can look at internships, fellowships, study abroad, and virtual internships. I want to talk to you first about two programs. We put this here because this is a student program, but most importantly, it leads to employment. So our diplomatic fellowships are structured, each of them do a slightly different thing, but they're structured the same way. They are mentorship programs because they're two-year programs and for the length of the fellowship, you'll be paired with a mentor. So they are a mentorship program, a fellowship program, in that they provide funding for either graduate study for the Pickering and Rangel programs, or undergraduate or graduate study for the FATE program, the Foreign Affairs IT program. They are internship programs as well. For each of the two years of those programs, there are paid internships, one domestic and the other overseas. The domestic internships for Pickering and the Foreign Affairs IT program are the first in Washington, D.C. in our headquarters and the second at an embassy or consulate abroad. For the Rangel program, the first domestic internship is on the hill with a member of Congress and then the second is at an embassy or consulate abroad. We'll talk a little bit about the Rangel Summer Enrichment Program, which is not an employment program, but each of those three diplomatic fellowships I just talked about, Pickering, Rangel and the FATE Foreign Affairs IT fellowship, lead to employment. So after the two internships, after the two years of study, after you graduate, you come into the Foreign Service, either as the Foreign Service Officer for Pickering and Rangel, or as a Foreign Affairs IT as an information management specialist. So yes, you heard correctly, there's a program that exists that will pay for two years of your study, either two years of graduate study or two years of undergraduate study for Foreign Affairs IT. Again, there's flexibility in that program, either two years of undergraduate study. So if you're a sophomore already enrolled in an IT field, you can apply and have your junior and senior year of your undergraduate study funded. Or if you are planning to study IT at the graduate level, you can apply and have two years of graduate study funded for FATE. For Pickering and Rangel, it's two years of graduate study, so internships, mentorships, fellowship, but most importantly, they lead to employment in the Foreign Service. So I don't know where you can find other programs that are similar, where you can have all of that packaged in at the end of it, actually have a job waiting for you. The Rangel Summer Enrichment Program is a six-week program that is housed at my alma mater Howard University. Six weeks of really intensive overview of the interagency, which is to say all of our sister agencies that are involved with international affairs. There's a strong writing component connected with that program, as well as quite a bit of economics. The application cycle actually just ended. Typically that application cycle opens in January of each year. So you can follow any of these links and they will lead you back to our main careers.state.gov page. And you can find out more information about each of the application processes for those fellowships or the Rangel Summer Enrichment Program. So there are a couple of ways to enter into the State Department as a student for student programs. The first is there are several pathways programs and pathways actually is not specific to the State Department. It is actually government-wide. One is the Presidential Management Fellowship and I have to say we have a PMF with us, that's Nathan Glenn. It's the federal government's premier two-year leadership development program. It's for those with advanced degree candidates. So if you're in graduate study, this is the program for you. It gives you an opportunity to take a look at several agencies and then at the end of that process to be placed in an agency in most cases, many cases. The recent graduate program is it's for one-year development. It's a one-year development program. So again, if you've recently graduated undergrad or grad, there will be applications that will be opening on USA jobs. They tend to go very quickly. So the best way to know when they're going to come up is to click that little keep me informed button that we will show you in our second session. And then there are paid internship opportunities, but I know that we have our colleagues who are going to talk about those programs. Thank you, Yolanda. And so first, we'll ask Ms. Brea Wilson to speak about the Student Internship Program. Hi, everyone. I'm here to talk about the Student Internship Program Unpaid. The Unpaid Internship Program is the opportunity to work in a U.S. Embassy or at one of the many bureaus located in Washington, D.C. Currently, all of our internships are being held virtually due to health and safety concerns of the pandemic, but we're hoping that we'll be going back to in-person very, very soon. Some eligibility and requirements to attend the Student Unpaid Internship Program is you must be a U.S. citizen. You must have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA. You must be able to receive a public trust secret or top secret clearance. You must be an undergrad, juniors and seniors, or a grad student. In order to qualify, you must be enrolled in a degree seeking program in an accredited college or university. You can be considered if you're a rising junior and please see CareersAtState.gov for further details on how to apply. The Internship Experience. So with our Unpaid Internship Program, you're allowed to participate in meetings with senior level and U.S. government and foreign government officials. You're drafting, editing, or contributing to Cables, which is a communication that the State Department utilizes, reports, communications, talking points, and other materials geared towards furthering U.S. foreign policy objectives. You're supporting events, including international and or multilateral meetings. And you're engaging directly with U.S. audiences and helping to explain the work of the Department of State. And you're helping to promote foreign policy and improve understanding of the U.S. culture and society. A few opportunities for some majors that we have, we have most for international, they're not just for international relation majors. We have the Bureau of Budget and Planning, which is accounting, business administration and economists. We have the Bureau of Medical Services, and that's for biology major, any kind of medical majors, nutritionist, social worker. We have the Bureau of Global Talent Management, which is the Bureau that I'm a part of. And we hire with HR and recruiting. We have the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, which is the environmental science degrees, ecologists, and environmental law. You could also find a list of all the degrees and careers.state.gov. We have a which office is right for you section. You can click on that and find your degree. And you can see what offices are specific to your degree. So our fall 2022 program, our applications open on March the 4th, and the application deadline is March the 17th. For the fall 2022 program, the internship season will be from September 12th to December 30th. And if you have any questions pertaining to the student internship program unpaid, you can contact us at studentinternship.state.gov. Thank you, Brea. So all of our student programs are considered to be stepping stones as ways of furthering your way on your path to becoming a U.S. diplomat. And this is a really good one. I myself I actually began while I was in grad school as a student intern through the SIP program. And next we have this Anastasia to speak to us about the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program. Thank you, Nathan. I'm very glad to be here once again. I want to do a quick plug for the State Department just to show you guys how robust we are. I am myself and is an immigrant and I joined the State Department through the DIR, which is the diplomat in residence. My alma mater is UCLA and we have to have a diplomat in residence and that's how I learned about the State Department. And I learned that you can represent your country, travel the world and get paid for it. I said, wow, sign me up. And I'm going to put out a plug for Brea's program. I did my internship as an unpaid intern and absolutely fell in love with the State Department doing anything else. And something that Yolanda mentioned, I was previously an office management specialist in the Foreign Service. And then, you know, life happens and but I still love the State Department and we do have opportunities for those of you who do the Foreign Service and decide, yeah, maybe I want to stay, stay, stay. Now I'm in the civil service working for this wonderful internship program. So I'm going to talk a little bit about it. What is USFSIP? So we are a fairly new program. We were established in 2014. And like I said, when I was an undergrad, it didn't exist. Otherwise, I would have applied because the awesome thing about it is it's paid. And we require a little bit more commitment to our program. We're a two summer program. So it's kind of cool on your side, guys, because you get two paid summers and we select our candidates. It's married based and need based. So those of you who receive financial aid like I was are taking out loans. Yeah, this is an opportunity for you guys to apply to this program where otherwise you wouldn't be able to, you know, travel the world or even travel to DC. So the first summer is basic is domestic. You got which we take you guys to DC, you live in DC for 10 weeks. The first three weeks is orientation and professional development would talk about US diplomatic history, how to write for the department and just a professional development as well. Again, to plug in, you do not need to be an international relations major. You just need to be want to represent your country and be interested in the State Department. So there is no major requirement to apply here. The second summer, you guys get the opportunity to travel overseas to one of the many posts and consulates and missions that we have overseas, not all, but a lot of them, like Nathan said, we have 276 and we've had students go to most of them. In between the two summers, you have to that's a requirement for us. You have to take the Foreign Service Officer test to gain better understanding what Foreign Service Service Assessment process is all about. We are geared to get you guys in interested in the Foreign Service, but it certainly is not a requirement. We've had students join the State Department through civil service through Foreign Service. Or as contractors. So, you know, we just want you guys interested in the State Department in general, and we've had a really good turnaround, you know, comeback rate of our students after they finished the State Department of the internship program. So they either, you know, to go to graduate school and have joined us through the Pickering and Rangel programs that have that Yolanda talked about, or they waited and they work and then decided to come back to the State Department. You know, there is no time limit after the internship to join us as long as you're interested. We're interested in you. One thing I do want to point out is that, unlike the pathways programs, we are not a job program. So you have the two summers to give us a test drive, like Yolanda said, and if you like it, then you can apply for a job or a fellowship. But we do not transfer over into the, into a job, which is great in some ways for those of you who are just wanted, you know, test out the waters. So our eligibility, you must be a U.S. citizen and currently enrolled in an undergraduate degree, and you have to have a cumulative GPA of 3.2, and you have to maintain it throughout the whole program. You must be rising juniors or seniors, so you can be applying out as you are sophomore, when you start the program, and you must be a continuing student throughout the whole program, which means you, if you apply, you can not graduate early after your first summer of the internship. You have to continue through. You must be able to obtain secret security clearance. Our application opens up usually last week of August on USA jobs. So to sign up for the reminders, I have a link down there. If you guys can copy it. If not, you can go to career.state.gov, go to student programs and go to student, to U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program, and hit on the keep me informed link. We don't widely advertise it. So if you're really interested in the program, go to the careers.state.gov. And if you have any specific question, oh yes, one more thing, what are the cool benefits about our program? Our students, our juniors are considered to be federal employees, so you get paid at a GS4 grade equivalent, and you are considered a government employee for the two summers that you're working for us. So we actually pay for your travel and for your housing for both summers, so both for overseas and for Washington, D.C. If you ever decide to join the federal government, any federal government doesn't have to be state, DOJ, Department of Justice, Department of Agriculture. Your time in the service, the two summers you count towards your federal service time. So those three months or altogether six months will then accumulate towards your retirement in the federal service. So that's a really good perk you guys get if you ever decide to join federal government in general. Our students are allowed to take courses at the Foreign Service Institute to further their knowledge of the State Department diplomacy or any other actually technology programs are offered through our Foreign Service Institute. So, and we also offer mentoring from our State Department personnel. If you have any specific questions about the program, feel free to email us at usfsip at state.gov. And of course, once again, visit us at careers.state.gov or talk to your diplomat and residents, your local diplomat and residents, Yolandes in D.C., Nathan's down south. We have them all over the United States and they all know all about our program, and we'll be happy to give you more information. Thank you. Thank you so much, Anastasia. This is a really cool program, you guys. I didn't know about this one. I don't think it was in existence when I was coming through school, but you can apply for it as a sophomore or junior. And it gives you two paid internships worth looking into. Next we have my colleague, Megan Quinn, who will speak about the virtual Student Federal Service. Thank you. The Virtual Student Federal Service is a virtual internship, but it's going to provide you real experience. Next slide, please. When Secretary Clinton launched the program in 2009, the idea was to connect the talents of U.S. citizen college students with the needs of the U.S. embassies and missions that Nathan talked about earlier in the presentation. The idea was to make public service accessible to all students, regardless of their location or family or financial constraints that might prohibit participation in a traditional in-person internship. It began with just the U.S. Department of State, then grew to include other foreign affairs agencies, and for this current school year we have 50 participating agencies. Next slide, please. And you can see just a handful of logos here. Everyone from NASA to the U.S. Air Force. Now, as I talk about, before I get into what the upcoming school year might hold, I wanted to talk about what the current school year has demonstrated to give you a sense of what might be possible in the upcoming year. More than 5,000 students applied, and more than 2,000 students were selected for internships. These students are working on more than 800 projects for 50 federal agencies, and that 800 figure is because many projects are calling for students to work on teams of students. And we see growing internship opportunities where the project mentor is looking for a graduate student or PhD student who has supervisory experience to lead the junior internship team. So it's a great way for both graduate students and undergraduate students to gain experience. Historically, I would say 60% of our participants have been undergraduates, but there are projects that specifically call for graduate students and PhD students. PhD candidates as well. Next slide, please. So who's eligible to participate? You must be a U.S. citizen who has graduated from high school and who is enrolled in college. You can participate in BSFS as early as a rising college freshman through a PhD candidate. And there are opportunities for all majors. You'll see that there are projects ranging from marketing to political analysis. But I see a growing need especially for students with tech skills via coding, website design, GIS, as well as a strong need for students with visual skills such as graphic design, videography, and social media. And in terms of the trend that I see is that students who participate as a BSFS intern as a rising college freshman or a sophomore, we see them then going on to pursue the traditional full time 40 hour week internship programs. And in fact, when I mentioned earlier my career highlight of my one of my earliest virtual interns becoming a civil servant as the same time as I did. That is what happened with her experience. She did the virtual internship with the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru. She then did a domestic internship in Washington DC, the State Department headquarters. She then pursued the pathways program and that's how she ended up becoming civil servant. So it's a great way to gain experience early in your academic career, not only with the U.S. Department of State, but other federal agencies as well. Now let's talk about eligibility or what the internship looks like. Students will work on projects for about 10 hours a week during the duration of the academic year, roughly September to May. And of course project mentors understand that there are some weeks you're more focused on finals and other weeks you'll have more time for the internship. So we say about 10 hours is the average. Internships are unpaid, but may be eligible for course credit. Next slide please. This is the timeline for the upcoming school year. The students apply July 1 through July 31 on USAJobs.gov, project mentors review applications, conduct interviews and make selections in August. And because students are working on unclassified projects, you don't receive a security clearance, you're only working on unclassified projects. But what that means is it's a very quick turnaround from when you apply in July when interviews are conducted in August and then you begin working in September. Next slide please. Delivering diversity. I wanted to mention that we have 60 VSFS alumni who are now foreign service officers and more than a third of those are from underrepresented groups. So if you're interested in gaining virtual part-time internship experience with the Department of State or another agency, please check out vsfs.state.gov. And if you have any questions, vsfs.state.gov is the email address. Thank you. Great, thank you all. So as I mentioned at the beginning, we have 16 diplomats and residents throughout the whole country, each responsible for our own region. If you are interested in the U.S. Department of State, I really encourage you to reach out to your DIR. You can find them by going to our website, careers.state.gov, and then slash connect slash DIR. You'll find this map and you can click on one of our locations and you'll be able to connect with us. But as I mentioned, if you're from Louisiana, Mississippi, or Arkansas, you got me. All right, I will stop sharing for now and bring us back so we can do Q&A. And just a few quick things. If you have any questions, please go ahead, feel free to drop it in the chat box now and let us know your name and where you're riding from. But just a few quick things to summarize what we spoke about earlier. Most of our student programs are going to be from sophomore year on up for the most part except for the vsfs, which you can do as a freshman. Most of them you'll need a 3.2 GPA to get into. So remember to keep your grades up. We look at all of these as being scaffolding, like ladder type of programs to move you up towards a career in the foreign service. So you may start off doing a vsfs or an unpaid internship and later get something else like a fellowship or do a study abroad program. And then, you know, make your way further into the foreign service. One quick stat to note. Those fellowships that my colleague Yolanda was talking about those those that pay for school and especially the Pickering in the Ring or pay for two years of graduate school, and then to pay internships and bring you into the Foreign Service. Last year's cohort, about 76% of those who were chosen for those fellowships had already had another State Department program under their belt. So so that's the importance of doing some of these student programs early and often. We mentioned the study abroad programs, but we're not going to go into it in depth ourselves because you have another session solely dedicated to that later on this afternoon around 120 or so I believe. And remember that most of these application processes begin on usajobs.gov. And that's the next session where we'll go into that a little, a little more Yolanda will give a great presentation about the usajobs.gov process and we'll ask you to go ahead and start setting up your profile. Now, questions right quick. Um, from Messeven Hill. This is what are the possibilities and routes to join the State Department for graduates of former years. Thanks. So I'll start off on that one. One, especially if you're interested in the Foreign Service, the main route to get into the Foreign Service is through the exam, the Foreign Service officer test that Yolanda briefly mentioned during this presentation. Um, the Foreign Service officer test, as she said, is offered three times a year, February, June, and October. And you can register for the exam in the month before the exam actually takes place. That exam is totally free to take. You don't have to spend any money to take that exam and you can take it as many times as you need to, except for the one limitation is that you can only take it once a year. So that is open for anyone as long as the only eligibility to take that exam is that you have to be 21 years of age and a US citizen. And so it's open for anyone to take. It's a multi-stage exam. Um, of course, it's not, it's not the easiest exam. It's an exam to make sure that, you know, you have certain qualities and characteristics that you need to be a US diplomat, which I explained on our website under something called the 13 Dimensions. And it includes qualities like your composure and your flexibility, your resourcefulness, your ability to work in a team, your written communication skills, oral communication skills, different types of skills like that are being tested all throughout that test. Not everyone passes the first time. So keep that in mind. Please, please do. And it's a process. So it can take a while. You can't take the exam sitting there unemployed thinking you're waiting on this to go through. You have to be doing something else while this is going on in the background. It took me three times to pass that exam. So at least three years, right? Because you can only take it once a year. So, so just keep that in mind. But it's good to go ahead and get started and to take the exam as soon as you feel comfortable. Another thing for graduates of former years are the Pickering in the Rangel fellowships. So you don't have to be in school to apply for those fellowships. You can apply for those fellowships as long as you're willing to attend grads or as long as you're planning to attend graduate school the following fall. So the applications are going to open this upcoming fall. And if you plan on attending graduate school the next fall, you're eligible to apply for those fellowships. Anything else for my co-panelists? No, covered it. Great. All right. Someone asked about the importance of foreign languages in the foreign service. It's important, but it's not important to make your way into the foreign service. So after we become US diplomats, after we become foreign service officers, we get trained in the foreign languages that we need to go to whatever countries of assignment that we're going to. For example, when I was assigned to go to China. Okay, I did come in with some Chinese, but the State Department gave me an additional 10 months of language training before sending me out to China to work over there. So for 10 months, I was being paid, my whole job was just to go to school and learn how to speak and read Chinese. And then after that assignment, I was assigned to Italy. And so the State Department paid for me to go study Italian for six months, I had no Italian whatsoever. So for six months there. And then when I went to Mexico, I was paid to go study Spanish for six months before beginning my job. So we get paid to learn our languages, which is something that you get some no one can take away from, you know, you get paid to better yourself. Right. And we do have to learn at least one foreign language during your career, during the first part of your career. In order to get over 10 years, you have to get off of language probation. So if you come in with the language, yeah, of course, it's great. You know, you come in getting off of language probation. But if you don't come in with the language, that's not the end of the world, you know, you just learn one to a certain level before you before you're able to get 10 years. Anyone want to add on that one? I'll add Nathan, is that okay. I was just gonna add that if you do come in with the language, especially once that are of interest or we have a lot of posts and you will probably get a chance to serve in one of those countries where that language is official and so it will it will work towards your benefit. The three posts that I served and I happen to speak all three languages so that really a lot of times helps you get those posts. Thank you. And then just a note on when you go through the exam process. So I mentioned it's a multi stage exam. If you wanted to try to join the Foreign Service directly through the exam. The first part of the exam is a multiple choice exam. And there's some essays that you'll need to write before you take that part. And then if you pass the multiple choice portion, then you'll go to what's called a qualifications evaluations panel where they review everyone's package who passed that multiple choice test, including the essays and the resumes and their references and all of that to see who are the most qualified candidates to invite to the next stage, which is the Foreign Service Oral Assessment, which is an all day in person assessment. And then at the end of that, if you pass that, then you go to the next stage, which you basically pass the test. But now you have to get your medical clearance to make sure that you're medically able to be worldwide available, meaning you're able to serve in any part of the world. And your security clearance, which means that you are basically not trying to overthrow the US and you're not going to be a threat to the US government. And then you don't have several infractions in your past or recent drug use or have tried to overthrow the US government in the past. Just things like your personal background check. And once you get past those two security checks, the security and the medical check, then you move to the what's called a suitability review panel. And that's just a panel that reviews everything in your file. And then if you pass everything there, then you get invited to you get put on the list, a register for eligible hires, and then you'll get invited to join a new Foreign Service class. All right, so I see we have about two minutes left. So thank you all for joining, thanks, especially to my co panelists, Miss Brie Wilson, Megan Quinn, Anastasia Almanzar, and Yolanda Kearney, of course. Yolanda and I will be in the next session and Yolanda will take the lead on that one talking about USAJobs.gov and how to actually get started applying for these student programs. All right, thank you all. And goodbye.