On Wednesday, September 17th, I went to the Fall Career and Internship Fair in the Ohio Union to fulfill my Professional Development requirement. Before I attended the fair, I worked on and added to my resume and did some research on who I wanted to talk to while I was there. Firstly, I looked at Applied Optimization, a business located in Fairborne that works with space technology. I was interested primarily in computer science internships that they offered. I also looked at the NSA and CIA and the vast number of opportunities they offered, and I was excited to see that both of my majors would fit into the potential internships. Lastly, I looked into Immuta, which is a software company that allows people to get secure data. With all of these companies in mind, I felt confident to talk to the people at the fair.
On Wednesday, I budgeted my time between classes to head over to the Union. I was most interested in talking to the CIA, mostly because it fit into what I wanted to work on in the future– cyber security. I was able to talk to a representative at the booth, who told me about the internships I could get as an undergraduate. Internships with the CIA are a semester long and require full-time work in Washington D.C. The internship positions are highly competitive, with the summer semester being the most competitive. There are positions for almost every major, and I could definitely find a position that would appeal to me. The representative recommended that I apply for a business-centered internship, as many of the positions within this department are looking for people with Computer and Information Science experience. After learning more about this potential opportunity, I definitely became more interested in applying for an internship there in the future. Although I certainly wanted to talk to other employers, I actually ended up staying at the CIA booth for a while and ran out of time to explore other companies.
This event can certainly tie back to international affairs, as the bulk of the work that is done at the CIA is internationally focused. Being able to learn more about the inner workings about the US’ global intelligence agency gave me more insight to how our national government operates. Hopefully I will be able to have the experience in national security with the CIA sometime during my undergraduate years, and gain further insight into international issues and politics.