First Post - I want to do what?

What is this blog about?

Well, a few months ago, I hit my quarter life crisis. I was 25, just starting graduate school, and really not sure what to do next. I was "happy" with my job. It paid well and the people I worked with were great. But something was missing and I felt stuck. Maybe it was just a combination of school work and the somewhat dryness of federal contracting but I needed to do something different.

In February 2011, I had a random conversation with a friend. She mentioned that she was going to visit a friend in Africa. It turns out this friend was a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) and stationed in Uganda. At this point in my life, I knew very little about what the FS was. Of course, one Google search led to another... and here I am, writing a blog about trying to become an officer.

So what is this all about? The U.S. State Department says this:

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad.

If you’re passionate about public service and want to represent the U.S. around the world, a challenging and rewarding career is waiting for you. The opportunity to work and experience cultures, customs and people of different nations is truly a career unlike any other.

The work you’ll do will have an impact on the world. You will be asked to serve at one of any of the more than 265 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. Some of these posts are in difficult and even dangerous environments, but working in them affords great challenges and rewards.

Basically, I will move around the world every 2-3 years representing the U.S. as a diplomat. Cool right?

U.S. Embassy in Prague

Learning Mandarin

I'm being realistic about this whole process though. I am still young and this really is a Plan B (dream job). Getting into the FS is not easy and you can't live your life around it being your only option. That said, I would like to put myself in a position to eventually get an offer, so I recently decided to start learning Chinese (Mandarin). Knowing Chinese would give me some major bonus points later on in the process. That said, even if I never make it to the FS, I can use Mandarin in many other ways. So it won't be a waste to get proficient in it at all.

So where am I?

I took the June 2011 FSOT (Foreign Service Officer Test) and passed with a 171. I just submitted Personal Narratives, along with all my other info, back to the State Department. A mystery panel (The QEP) will look over all the applications and rank us based on a variety of factors. Based on this ranking, I may get invited to the Oral Exam in November. If I fail at any point, I'll have to wait until the next June written test.

In the meantime, I will be learning as much Chinese as I can. I have Rosetta Stone and plan on taking classes this fall. My hope is to be at a level 2 in Chinese in at least 2 - 3 years time. Anyone have thoughts on this?

I will go into more details in later posts... but that is a general outline of what I am going be writing about. So if you are interested in taking the FSOT or learning Chinese, Stay tuned.