My name is Heather.
I am a Foreign Service Officer in the political career track.
I’ve been in the Foreign Service since January 2013, and my first tour was in Guangzhou,
China, where I was doing a two-year tour as a Consular Officer.
I was born in Bangor, Maine.
I lived there with my family until after I graduated high school.
So I’m from kind of a small town – a small place in the country.
I didn’t really have a lot of exposure to international stuff there, but when I was
a junior in high school I participated in this program that took a group of students
to Europe and we had – half of it was sort of touring around, learning about European
politics.
I just loved it and I thought this is what I wanna do with my life.
I graduated from Columbia University with a degree in anthropology, which I think is
a fantastic degree if you wanna be a Foreign Service Officer, ‘cause you really – if
you’re interested in cultures, in international issues, I mean, this is the basis of how to
understand someone else.
When I was a sophomore at – in college – I applied for the Pickering Fellowship, and
that’s when I got it.
And a family friend was the first one to tell me about the Foreign Service, and what that
was.
And then at the career services office, I found out a little bit more about the Pickering
Fellowship and was encouraged to apply by my career counselor.
Oh, it’s been an amazing benefit.
I think the – by far the biggest benefit is the network that you build, both personally
and professionally.
So professionally there are sort of a – in a way an alumni network of fellows from both
the Pickering and Rangel programs that get together.
It’s an easy entrée when you meet someone for the first time and they often organize
events specifically for Pickering or Rangel fellows, or they keep up a list of the names
of fellows.
So if you’re going – you get a new assignment, you’re going to a new country, you can look
to see who’s there already that is also an alumni of the fellowship.
So that’s great.
And personally, I mean, my Pickering cohort, when I first entered the fellowship, we are
still very close.
They’re some of my closest friends now.
Besides that, they organized internships for us which were really, really useful in getting
some experience before you actually enter the Department.
I found this fellowship to be extremely supportive in every step of the way.
So advice for pursuing the Pickering Fellowship would be learning as much as you can about
what the career really entails.
There are so many wonderful aspects of being a Foreign Service Officer, but it can be hard
sometimes, too – moving around to different countries all the time, being far away from
friends and family.
So the more you know about what the positives and difficulties of the career are, I think
the more prepared you are for the application process and for the interview portions and
all the things that you need to do, and the more ready you are for the career as well.
I think anyone should absolutely pursue the Pickering Fellowship.
It is – if you want to join the Foreign Service, it’s an amazing way to learn about
the Department before you show up to the job, to meet an incredible network of people, to
get your education partially funded, which, I mean, in this economy and with the costs
of education rising that’s just such a benefit.
It’s a win, win, win situation as far as I can see it.
There is no other job like it in the world.
You are part of history.
You’re part of making the news.
You are helping people every day and the Pickering Fellowship just helps you through that process
every step of the way.
So I absolutely encourage everyone to apply.