“And one of the great things about the economic track is that you’re in a position to be the eyes and ears of the government and help to explain the crises that are unfolding. If you get it right, if you cam diagnose the problem correctly, then you can lead to some good solutions.”

“I’ve always wanted to join the Foreign Service because you’re away from the norms and the values that you’re accustomed to. You learn to try to adapt to the environment that you’re in while retaining who you are at the core and advocating for the United States.”

“You can have a huge impact on advancing U.S. foreign policy goals, and international security goals from within the economic track. It’s not a career that you have to have a specialized education for, or a special interest in foreign cultures or something. You need to have a desire to serve your country.”

“The experience has been incredible. I’ve learned so much about how to brief, how to alert, how to understand information. It’s been fascinating to see what our response is, how our interagency process works, how we work with the Defense Department, how we work with the White House.”

“I think of the livelihoods of the people who work back in America, the people that I grew up with, the people that I serve as a public servant. And what I do overseas makes it so that they have a better economic future and their children and my children have better economic future.”

“Coming from the private sector background where I was dealing with all of those issues and trying to understand them, it was really intriguing to me to move from understanding them to helping to impact them and improve them and working for U.S. interests.”

“If you’re intrigued by foreign cultures, if you find that when you travel you really get a kick out of it, and you’re kind of the type who likes to go in the back alleys and see what people are really doing beyond the tourist resorts, look at the Foreign Service because that’s kind of what we do.”

“There is no such thing as a slow day and the work itself is fascinating. There is no component of international relations that doesn’t depend on the State Department. So there’s a weighty responsibility there. You are, for all intents and purposes, America, to them.”