The Foreign Service

Foreign Service Officers serve world-wide

Two minutes ago, I received an e-mail from the State Department saying I passed the foreign service exam and can move on to the next stage in the hiring process (five narrative essays, which, if acceptable, will lead to two days of oral interviews in Washington, D.C.). This is the second time I’ve taken the FSOT (foreign service officer test), and I am still in absolute shock that I passed.

The first time I took the test was a year or two after Ben was born, so either 2003 or 2004. We had been in Tucson for a while, and we weren’t sure we would have any more children. Since there is about a 2-year lead time for hiring, I figured I might get hired around when Ben went to kindergarten, if I made it through the process. Unfortunately, I did not pass the first stage: the test. Arguably this is the easiest portion of the process, so failing it was a bit discouraging, but I kept in mind the areas I was weakest (economics and world history) and for the past five years, I’ve paid special attention to both areas. I also studied much harder and much more efficiently this time. I think I did poorly on the essay section, but the rest of the test passed like a breeze — I completed it in 2 hours and 20 minutes (rather than the 4 hours allotted) and left thinking I’d either done spectacularly or really, really badly. I don’t know about the spectacular part, but I passed.

I always seem to choose professions that make the average person on the street stop and go, “Hunh?” I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to friends and acquaintances that librarianship is a profession, and does not consist of shushing people and stamping books anymore. I find that most people are unaware of what, exactly, a foreign service officer is and what the field is about also.

The foreign service is a corps of diplomats who work to assist U.S. citizens around the world, and who spread diplomacy and cooperation between the U.S. government and foreign entities. There are 265 foreign service posts abroad, as well as posts within the U.S. When I say, “Diplomat,” some people automatically think, “Ambassador,” but diplomat to ambassador is like politician to U.S. Senator; there are many diplomats, and a few rise up the career ladder to become an Ambassador. The most recent head of the State Department and thus the foreign service officer corps is Hillary Rodham Clinton; her predecessor was Condoleeza Rice.

Aaron talks to an Iraqi woman as part of his job.

Foreign Service Officers specialize in five core areas: management, consular, economics, political, and public diplomacy. I applied for management, which means that, if hired, I would help run a consulate or embassy somewhere. A consular officer mainly deals with passports and visas for citizens and foreign nationals; an economics officer deals with economic policy abroad; a political officer would liaise with politicians and dignitaries in foreign countries, and a public diplomacy officer (see Aaron Snipe’s blog on serving in Iraq for an example) acts as the public face of the U.S., working with U.S. and foreign media and arranging for various programs that introduce U.S. culture and policy to the public abroad.

The other thing to know about the foreign service is that it is much like the military in that employees and their families move about every three years to a new location. It was a really difficult decision for me, now that I’ve been back in the U.S. for 8 1/2 years and have two children, whether or not to apply for the foreign service again primarily because of the stress it could put on Marti and the kids for us to continually move. Children whose parents are in the foreign service are called foreign service brats the way military kids are called military brats, and they share some of the same problems from continuous upheaval.

I read multiple articles about it, both social and psychological, and in the end I realized that it is impossible to give my children my own childhood — nor would I want to do so. I had a quiet, stable childhood in a rural town, and I lived in the same house until I moved out at 18. It was monotonous, and I watched several friends fall out of the race because of pregnancy, fear, or lost opportunities. There was beauty, yes — oh yes! The high desert is a beautiful place, and I miss the forests and the clear streams, jumping into icy cold lakes from a thirty-foot ledge, sneaking into a secret hotsprings that was little more than a ring of rocks where a hot spring met a cold stream. I miss those things. But being confined to a small area made me want to put on wings and fly in order to see the world, and that longing remains. My children have, thus far, grown up in the center of a city. They cannot ride their bikes to the corner market — it’s too dangerous. They can’t spend long days alone in the park, hiding at the top of a maple tree — maple trees don’t even grow here in the land of spines and thorns.

So I took the plunge, submitted the application, and here I am at Stage 2. If this door opens, and I walk down this road, my children will grow up in an environment 180 degrees from how I grew up. It would mean that I would have to face continual challenges: learning more languages, traveling to more places, experiencing more that is utterly foreign. But I have to say: this small-town girl’s heart is as light as air at the thought. And now…I have five essays to write!