What is your job/position?
Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State (diplomat)
Describe the path that took you from your American Studies degree to your current career or life situation.
Foreign Service Officers are hired as generalists (as opposed to specialists); my degree was the perfect embodiment of the ethos that diplomats are expected to know a wide variety of subjects and be able to represent the US overseas.
What are the specific competencies you cultivated as an American Studies student that you now use in your professional life and that set you apart from your colleagues?
Broad knowledge in history, political science, economics, and the arts and the ability to make connections. Again, I am a generalist and one day I may be arranging meetings with a congressional delegation and the next day speaking to middle school students. My degree is unusually applicable to what I do.
What are some of the surprising ways in which your American Studies degree has helped you in your professional or personal life?
Each student’s curriculum in the American Studies program is unique, and I have found the class choices I pursued to pop up in surprising ways. I took a jazz history class and have worked with jazz musicians. I took a diplomatic history class and have worked with the Department of State’s Office of the Historian.
What do you wish you had known as an American Studies student? What advice would you share with current students?
I’d advise students to take advantage of the flexibility of the program and find classes that are applicable to what you plan to do in the future.