The Dacor Bacon House for Retired Ambassadors

The secretaries of State (Hillary Clinton on far right)

Our Yummy Meal

On Wednesday instead of having our normal international relations class we went to the Dacor Bacon House for Retired Ambassadors, and we had lunch and had a Retired Foreign Service Officer and Ambassador come and speak to us! It was pretty amazing to hear his stories and hear more about the foreign service! For the foreign service you have to pass this exam which most people do after grad school and then you are in! You get your first assignment, and if you can't speak the language of the country the Dept. of State pays to train you and also pays you a normal salary while you are in training. If you do know the language though you get paid an extra $10,000 on top of your normal salary! So it would help me to know french!

The only thing that seems a bit scary is that you switch post every 1-2 years, so you are constantly moving and if you have a family/husband they can't always come with you, actually 1/3 of the places they can't come with you!

It still sounds amazing though, you get paid to learn languages and get to travel the whole entire world! I'm just not sure if I want to be traveling that much and moving that much, or being out of the United States that much! But in terms of what you do in the Foreign Service it is exactly what I want to do, because it is an entire career of diplomacy, you work in consulates and embassies and basically help the US stay allies with the country you are in!

It sounds like a cool opportunity! And it was great having this man talk to us, because it is always interesting hearing from someone who has done the job! Also if you work your way up in the foreign service you can become an ambassador, and then you get to stay in one place for a little bit longer! So it's definitely an option!

Also lunch was really good, and it was so fancy!

In 2 weeks we get to go on a tour of the department of state and meet people who work there which will be very exciting!