This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2021 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here.
This entry is by Kelly V. MacGarrigle, COL ’22
This past summer, I worked for the US Department of State, in the American Embassy to Austria, in the Political/Economic Section. I have known from a young age that public service was, and will remain, my calling, and having the opportunity to work alongside Foreign Service Officers who have served this nation around the world is a privilege that is difficult to put into words. Rather than being relegated to simple administrative tasks, the embassy immediately had me hit the ground running, writing briefing memos for embassy official’s meetings with their high-level country counterparts in Austria. From there, the embassy would have me write reports on relevant topics for cables to DC and allowed me a certain degree of creative freedom in what I choose to research. One of the areas that I love to research at Penn is international development, but I almost always approach it from a US-based perspective. Working with the embassy, I wrote a report on Austrian development and aid policies and the complex dynamics which underpin political discussions surrounding aid and assistance to foreign nations. I attended events on behalf of the embassy, writing up summaries for FSOs on issues including Austrian policies towards China and the rise in trafficking in persons during the COVID crisis.
I also research Foreign Terrorist fighters for the embassy, which became especially relevant with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Writing this report forced me to challenge some of my own biases about the security situation in Austria since a large number of the foreign terrorist fighters tried in Austria are not migrants from the Middle East but come from Chechnya and the Balkans. While writing this report for the Political Section of the Embassy, the political situation in the Middle East was changing quite literally by the minute, and I had to get direct information from the ground and update my report several times under short deadlines. I also wrote and revised a report on Asylum policies in Austria, which grew in importance with the rise in migrants coming from Afghanistan to Europe. There were times where I just had to stop writing a report and think about the sheer awesomeness of what I was doing – I was doing diplomacy! Like all of the people, I study in my classes! While I learned an incredible amount about Austrian politics, diplomacy, and culture, and their relationship with the US, the most valuable part of this internship was the FSOs I met. I talked to every member of the Embassy section and got their honest opinions about careers in the foreign service – the benefits, the downsides, and why they still chose to pursue a career where you move every two years and often live in incredibly unwelcoming places. Regardless of the detractions, they are still firmly committed to the US diplomatic mission worldwide. And after working with these incredible individuals this summer, I have found that commitment is as steadfast for me as it is for them – and I now know how meaningful the future I’ve been studying and working for will be.
