International Relations -> Working in Intelligence...?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>I am going to be a college sophomore next year and I was thinking about majoring in International Relations. My question is, how could majoring in International Relations prepare me for a job working in United States Intelligence? (Unfortunately, I have no language skills, as of now, just FYI) </p>

<p>Also, what kind of internships are available for me now, that would make me a competitive applicant for, say, the NSA, CIA, DIA, State Department, NRO, etc, a few years down the line? Thanks!</p>

2

<p>I worked in the intel biz for ten years. A big decision you need to make is whether you want to be sitting at a desk analyzing, planning, and researching stuff, or if you want to be out in "the field" involved in "operations." </p>

<p>A lot of this will depend on what sort of person you are, and what sort of physical shape you're in. If you're a studious type who loves to amass and ponder huge amounts of data, then go for desk route. If you're more of a dynamic, observant, decisive type, then go for the field work.</p>

<p>Whichever route you go, there are a few things you can do to make yourself very valuable. The first is to get some language skills. Obviously, Arabic would be the best right now. Farsi (what they speak in Iran), and Korean would also be good. Russian, French, and Spanish are handy too, due to their wide applicability.</p>

<p>Being very talented with computers would be good too.</p>

<p>Stay away from drugs and any illegal activities of ANY kind. You will be asked about all that stuff when you are being evaluated for your security clearance--probably while hooked up to a lie detector.</p>

<p>Perhaps the most efficient way to get your foot in the door is to go into the military, and get into the fields of intelligence or cryptology. In those fields you will get the high-level security clearances that will be necessary in any of the organizations you mentioned, and make contacts that will get you all sorts of jobs. I was a cryptology officer, and guys I knew when I was in the Navy are now with NSA, CIA, DIA, and State Dept.--exactly where you want to be.</p>

<p>Bottom line: you can major in international relations if you want, but majoring in languages, math, computer science, or engineering would be good too.</p>

<p>If you want to kill a lot of birds with one stone, take ROTC in college, and make sure the college is near an ethnic enclave where you could mix with people who speak one of those languages. For example, go to U of Michigan, major in computer science or some IR-type field, minor in Arabic, and spend as much time as possible in the nearby Detroit suburb of Dearborn where there is a huge concentration of people speaking Arabic. If you can speak Arabic like a native, you're gold.</p>

3

<p>
[quote]

Also, what kind of internships are available for me now, that would make me a competitive applicant for, say, the NSA, CIA, DIA, State Department, NRO, etc, a few years down the line? Thanks!

[/quote]
Pick one specific thing in intelligence that you are interested in and focus on it. Because all of these agencies do very different things. I can't see how you'd want to work for the State Department's Research bureau and the National Reconnaisance Office at the same time, for example. They are totally different aspects of intelligence.</p>

4

<p>What about chinese?</p>

5

<p>Farsi is always good I know quite a few fluent speekers and theres plenty of iranians and more coming yearly..so its good for inteligence And just being able to speek that language</p>

6

<p>Looked this up for you:</p>

<p>According to the CIA, some of the most important languages for intelligence are Arabic, Chinese/Mandarin, Dari/Pashtu, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian (Farsi), Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Thai, and Turkish.</p>

7

<p>hey tourguide,
I'm interested in working in intelligence as well, I'm a college student & in ROTC. I havent really ever spoken to anyone in that field, but I've heard that the analysts get paid MUCH better than those in the field. I would be interested in working in the field, but if the people sitting comfy & safe behind the desk are getting 3x my salary, I might rethink that!
What are the realities of that?? and do you have any advice for me going the miliitary route?? I would be interested in entering either Military Intelligence or some foreign relations field? any ideas?</p>

8

<p>So far, I really appreciate all your help! I'll give you some more information about me.</p>

<ol>
<li>I was planning on learning Italian, well, because that seems like a cool language. Unfortunately, like it is widely known, there isn't much use for Italian in intelligence.</li>
<li> My main goal is working at the CIA, more likely as an analyst. </li>
<li> I'm still wondering what kind of work I actually do as an analyst, i.e., what skills will I be using and how would an IR major help me. </li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks again.</p>

9

<p>Murphy, there would generally be 3 types of workers--military, civilians working for the government, and civilians working for private companies contracted by the government. </p>

<p>The military pay depends on rank and how many years you've been in uniform, with extra pay if you are flying, in combat, or involved in other special or dangerous duties.</p>

<p>The civilians working for the government are mostly in the "GS" system (GS-7, GS-8, etc.). </p>

<p>The exact amounts the military and civilian government employess get are public record, and I'm sure you can find them on the internet. Civilians often get slightly more than their military counterparts at the same level, but they don't have the 20-year retirement and other great military benefits.</p>

<p>The civilians working for government contractors are the ones who can make really good money--often for doing the same thing as military and government civilans. I knew one guy who retired as a Navy petty officer cryptologist a few years back making somewhere around $30,000 per year. The day after his retirement, he went back to the same job at the same desk, and was making about $120,000 per year as a civilian working for a company that was contracted by the government. EXACT same job, but making 4 times as much.</p>

<p>Another guy I know who retired from the Navy works as a civilian for one of those private companies that provide "security" for American government VIPs in Iraq. He's basically a bodyguard, and makes more than the Ambassador whom he often guards.</p>

<p>Often the people who get these lucrative government contractor jobs are ex-military people. They get the training and clearances from the military, so when they retire or otherwise leave the military, they are ready to get hired, and the companies don't have to spend a lot on training or getting the clearances.</p>

<p>So to answer your question, yeah, some people get paid way more than others, but it's not an analyst/field thing--it's a government/private company thing.</p>

<p>You didn't say which branch of the military you are going into. The 2 fields you'd want to get into are Intelligence and Cryptology. Depending on which service you are in, these fields can be very close or completely separate career paths. It's not easy getting good info on them, especially from recruiters, because what they do is usually done behind closed doors and the regular military guys have no clue what they are doing. Either one of these fields (Intelligence or Cryptology) would give you a lot of exposure to the military and political situations in specific countries and regions, and would give you a high-level security clearance, so they would therefore be good preparation for moving on to the CIA, NSA, DIA, State Dept., etc.</p>

10

<p>Stopplayingames: Italian might be handy if you were in the FBI doing organized crime work, but it's not the most valuable language in the intelligence field.</p>

<p>CIA analysts digest gigantic amounts of data drawn from a wide spectrum of sources, and they look for trends, anomolies, connections, etc. Then they boil down the info and put it into reports of varying levels of specificity and certainty. Often these analysts specialize in one country or one region. The info could be military, political, economic, terrorist, etc. Being an IR major would give you a good grounding of how nations operate and interact. If you wanted to specialize, majoring in Russian Studies, Slavic Studies, Chinese Studies, etc. would also be good.</p>

11

<p>Don't overlook federal law enforcement as a possible path to working in the intelligence field. While you may not be spending all your time working on things you can never talk with your spouse about, you can nonetheless contribute to the national security, perhaps in ways that are more field oriented - within the US.</p>

<p>Tourguide is correct. ROTC and specified languages, mathematics, computer science, accounting are all desirable fields of study. Ensure, however, that you know and are OK with what will be required up front. For example, many federal LE jobs require about 6 months in formal, demanding training and 3 years of probation. All after extensive, and periodic, background work and constant scrutiny. Many intelligence jobs are also 24x7x365, so expect shift work and holiday pay. This can be tough on families, should you have one or want one. Federal LE jobs are also demanding, with unexpected travel, hours and 'on-call' status plus the inherent risks.</p>

<p>It has been said that federal employment is like riding an elephant. It's hard to climb on, but once there the view is pretty nice.</p>

<p>Also - the NSA does periodic testing at universities. This could help.</p>

<p>Pay grades with Federal LE are on the GS schedule unless you enter management. Generally, the Senior Special Agent (GS-1811-13) is the highest one can earn before management, except for certain circumstances. A GS-13 step 10 can easily earn some $120K, plus a government-owned vehicle to take home, before add-ins for high cost of living areas. Federal LE also has 20 year retirement under FERS.</p>

<p>Many contractors are retired feds or former military personnel.</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
Stay away from drugs and any illegal activities of ANY kind. You will be asked about all that stuff when you are being evaluated for your security clearance--probably while hooked up to a lie detector.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What sort of illegal activities are you talking about? Will they care too much that I partied (but never did drugs) in high school?</p>

13

<p>I don't think underage drinking was ever a problem (if it was, I never would have gotten in the front door). Or traffic tickets. But theft of any sort would be bad. Drug use, unusual sexual habits, close ties to people from certain countries, and anything you might be afraid of going public are bad. Red flags are things that show instability, carelessness, dishonesty, lack of characer, and also anything someone might blackmail you with. That's one of the problems the military has with homsexuality and marital infidelity--that it might be a secret, and some foreign entity could find out about it and threaten to reveal it if you don't do something for them. </p>

<p>I'm not sure if they still do it, but when I was in, to get the top security clearances, Defense Investigative Service agents went door to door in your former neighborhoods asking people if they had anything bad to say about you. Getting a top clearance is very expensive--that's why the private companies love hiring people who already have them...it saves them that expense.</p>

14

<p>Anything that is a federal or state crime or causes doubt about your character. For example, cheating on a test at school and being brought before the Honor Committee at school. It's not a crime, but it would cause problems.</p>

<p>probably the best way to establish a clean and trustworthy history is through the military, if necessary.</p>

<p>yes - they still go door-to-door and talk with your neighbors, friends, employers, teachers and so on.</p>

<p>One further thought - put nothing on Facebook, MySpace or the web that you would not want to show your parents/pastor/rabbi/grandmother. This can be a source of problems.</p>

15

<p>I'm not sure, but if you're hoping to get one of the really high security clearances, you might also want to keep your Google searches somewhat within the realm of decency. Maybe parent2noles has current info on whether one's internet activities are fair game for background investigators.</p>

16

<p>Thanks for all the information,
I'm in Air Force ROTC, and it's looking like I'm leaning twoards MI for my career, and then hoping to join the CIA after I seperate from the military.
Lol, I'm a pretty decent guy I don't think I'll have any problems with security clearences.
I had no idea about the government versus private sector work... that's really interesting. So then why doesn't everyone jump on that??
I actually really haven't heard of any private sector intelligence companies. I didn't know they existed. Sounds good though.
About the whole government pay.... doesn't GS-13 take a LONG time to get to? So, maybe 20 years into my career I might be making a decent salary?
So basically the more training and higher security clearence you get, the more money you can make?</p>

17

<p>A lot of the private sector stuff is more maintenance, electronic, communications, networking, research, and computer-related stuff...more technical than operational. Not every military/government job has a close private-sector equivalent. A lot of people DO jump to the private sector jobs, but the military retirement is so attractive that they often stick around to qualify for it (or switch to the reserves and finish it that way).</p>

<p>There are some possible add-ons, but generally the level of clearance you get before you are even allowed to walk in the front door is high enough for most jobs.</p>

<p>The pay and benefits for military officers and the GS levels is such that they can usually lead a very nice life. I don't know what your idea of a "decent salary" is. There must be hundreds of web sites that list the pay for various levels of military and civilian government workers.</p>

18

<p>Well, what I was basically refering to was the salaries of CIA employees. And I have checked out their website many times, that's why I thought their salaries were a little off.
I mean that sounds a lot like I'm reducing it to money, but I was just wondering what the differences were.
For instance,
A Military Analyst at the CIA , once career I thought would be interesting, can make up to 114,882 plus benefits.
A field person on the other hand can only make a MAX of 70 thousand. Now, I'm not trying to say that's peanuts, but the vast difference in the pay between analyst versus field seemed odd....
That's all I was trying to get at...
On another note though, that private sector stuff does seem interesting... so basically they are analysts and they sell their information??</p>

19

<p>A language list I have heard was more like: Arabic, Korean, Farsi, Dari (Afghan Farsi), Pushto, Urdu, Turkish. Actually, I am surprised that Korean is on such a list, as there are so many Korean Americans. There are millions of people who can translate from Urdu to English, but few of them are Americans, so that is why the demand is high.</p>

20

<p>Usually when you're sent places other than your home base, there are all sorts of tax-free allowances for travel, lodging, food, and other expenses. These are sometimes far in excess of what your actual expenses for these things will be (so you keep the rest). So the field people might be making far more than their base pay.</p>

<p>Sometimes the government might be hesitant to put a native speaker of a certain language on a project involving that language to avoid any conflict of interest he/she might have, as he/she might still have lots of relatives back in that country. It's also quite common for someone who speaks a certain foreign language to be assigned to train in a completely different language, as the fact that they know 2 languages is seen as an indication that they are good at languages and could handle a different one. So, for example, an American who speaks Spanish perfectly might get hired and quickly sent to learn Korean or Serbo-Croatian.</p>

<p>In general, these days you couldn't go wrong by learning a language associated with terrorism or nuclear threats.</p>

<p>Do a google search for "Rand Corporation" to get an idea of what one government contractor is like. Wikpedia has an interesting article on Rand, with some very familiar names in it....</p>