Earlier today, I finally accepted a handshake to go back to the Washington, DC area for the Foreign Service Institute’s Economic Studies course. It’s six months of economics training followed by either language training for an onward assignment or a six month stint in an economic job at the Department of State or another economic department like Commerce or USTR, a think tank, or a private company.
It was a nervewracking couple of weeks waiting for something to work out and by my last tally, I sent more than 75 e-mails inquiring about positions that seemed to be open in the bidding system, but that turned out to be spoken for, just not yet registered in the system. I was not feeling excited about many of the options left, until I had a brainwave and remembered the FSI Econ course. I’m super excited to get it as an onward assignment, since I don’t have an extensive economics background and could get a lot out of the course.
All’s well that ends well. 🙂