Diplomacy & foreign service - anyone?

Question

I'm about to enter college, and recently became very interested in the possibility of entering into foreign service or diplomacy. I can speak almost fluent mandarin chinese and french, in addition to english, and am interested in int'l affairs.

does anyone have any personal experience in these fields?

any advice to what it's really like, and what I may need to know to mentally/educationally prepare myself? thanks!

Answer 1

Well actually I do:)

I am a sophomore at Seton Hall Univerity majoring in International relations and diplomacy. We actually are the second best diplomacy school in the nation next to Georgetown because we are affiliated with the United Nations.

In the beginig of feshman year it was very much a waste of time. I had only one diplomacy related class and i had to mostly take core statistics, english, university life, stuff like that. Then second semester i continued with it and it became progressivley more interesting.

This year (my second year) I take all diplomacy classes. Its nice because part of being a diplomacy student is u must take a foreign language every semester and it gives u an autmoatic minor in that language (mine is arabic but we also have chinese, japanese, french, russian, basically anything u could imagine).  One thing i noticed about diplomacy is that its alot fo the same thing again and again and again. But once you get to the upper levels its becomes so mch more interesting so u have to stick with it.

This semester i took, comparitive foreign policy, macroeconomics, Human rights, sustainable development, arabic, and international global governance.  Aall of these classes are very interesting and u really get to voice ur opinion.

Studying diplomacy is also great because there are mmmannnyy job oppurtunities, But remember it is EXTREMLEY hard to become a UN ambassador. Thats like saying i study poltics and want to be the president. But hey its nice to aim high.

Anyway ive talked alot.....id say definitly look into it...i have had so many opprutunities to meet so many great people through this major. Just this year i met John C Whitehead and the Ambassador of the United States to the UN, Jane Goodall, and last weekend my hero Ron Paul!!!! The onyl bad thing i would say is that i noticed that almost everyone in the diplomacy program seem to be a little stuck up. They are very intelliegnet but a little stiff. They also tend to knwo alot more than just information in the classroom. I felt a little uncomfortable at first because i like to party and im pretty laid back but i got use to it.

Good luck and i hope u look into it.