What's it like to intern at OSAC?

美国国务院 Student Internship Program (SIP) participant, Caroline Brooks,?describes the unique opportunities she experienced during her internship with the OSAC , summer 2023.?

Interning at OSAC has provided me with useful and unforgettable experiences and helped to prepare me for a career in national security. I would highly recommend this internship to anyone who wishes to pursue a career in law enforcement, national security, or any of many other related fields.?

My background is in the study of the American justice system and law enforcement. I earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia in Criminal Justice, and I have a few years of experience working as a research assistant for my university’s School of Public and International Affairs. This fall, I will be attending law school at Emory University. I also have an interest in studying criminal and international law.??

Before coming into this internship, all I really knew was that I wanted to work for the federal government. My university's internship coordinator reached out to me about the opportunity to intern for the Department of State over the summer, and I decided to apply.?What I truly wanted to get out of an internship experience was guidance and exposure. Criminal justice is an incredibly broad field of study, so I hoped that working for the Department would help me focus on a more specific aspect of the field.

Thankfully, my hopes were met at OSAC, a public-private partnership within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. OSAC works to share security information and maintain strong public-private bonds for the protection of U.S. organizations operating overseas. On my first day, I was asked if there were a particular region of the world that I would like to focus on during my time as an intern. I chose South and Central Asia. Having a specific region of focus helped to further narrow down the broad field of criminal justice and allowed me to delve more deeply into certain topics.?

In addition to guidance, I wanted to get exposure out of this internship. During my undergraduate degree, I was taught about operations of local and state law enforcement on a smaller scale. During my internship for OSAC, I wanted to be exposed to proceedings on the federal and international levels. I have gotten to learn about criminal procedure in other countries as well as pressing security threats to private sector interests abroad.??

I’ve learned more in a few weeks at this internship than I sometimes have in a few semesters. I've had the opportunity to work on a myriad of diverse projects from writing security briefs to helping create OSAC’s vital Country Security Reports to even practicing my public speaking. I haven't had a dull moment and there's always a new and exciting project coming down the pipeline for me to work on.??

I believe this experience has helped to prepare me for my eventual career. It's instilled me with priceless knowledge, experience, and connections that I could not have acquired anywhere else. I learned a great deal about the world as a whole as well as my region of interest. This knowledge came from not only what I was told by OSAC employees but also from independent research that I was encouraged to do during my internship.?I also just got a glimpse into what it's like to work for the federal government in matters of global security overall.??

Finally, this internship granted me vital connections with other federal employees and even other interns that will serve to be extremely useful in my coming career. I've had the opportunity to meet people from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences. Despite the differences in career, education, and even interests, what these people all have in common is that they are all working for the same goal: protection of U.S. interests overseas. This internship has allowed me to network and make connections that I could not have found anywhere else.?I've been introduced to jobs and positions that I was not even aware existed, which has opened my eyes to new career opportunities.? I thought that going to law school would lead me to the same job opening as everyone else who had a J.D. and an interest in national security. However, this internship has taught me that there are a variety of positions I could qualify for, even in the same office where I am currently interning.??

Overall, I would absolutely recommend participating in this internship to others in my career path. This is not an experience you could get anywhere else. From the exposure to a new world of operations and relations to the valuable insights you will gain, I cannot recommend this internship enough. It has had a massive impact not only on my perception of what it means to be a federal employee but also on my vision of what I want to eventually do as my career.?

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