>> So here at Penn State, I graduated in '02 and I majored in sociology, psychology
and women's studies, and I had a minor in statistical analysis.
What I knew I wanted to do at the time, I really didn't know.
I knew I wanted to do something in the policy arena.
I knew that I was really interested in issues of inequality, of conflict.
But I was really passionate about a number of domestic issues as well.
Women's issues was something I was really involved in, very focused on.
But I also had a real interested in foreign policy and international relations.
And in the policy world, you kind of have
to choose one direction or the other at a certain point.
There really is a divergence in the paths.
And I was very conflicted, actually, about which way I wanted to go.
And for me, it sounds kind of cheesy, but I had this unbelieving clarifying moment,
which was 9-11, which was when I was a senior.
So September of '01, I was, you know, starting to try to think about what I was going to do
after college and which way I wanted to go.
And I remember being in the Hub watching the second plane hit the towers.
And I woke up the next morning and I said, "Okay, I know what I need to do.
I need to make sure that that never happens again."
And that was it.
So at that point, I decided to go to grad school.
And the one piece of advice I would give to students is don't do what I do.
I wish I had taken time off in between undergrad and grad school,
because I think I would have gotten so much more out of my graduate education,
if I'd had a little bit of work experience to apply it to.
But I went right to graduate school, and I got my master's
in international conflict resolution at American University.
And from there, I joined the state department.
The two biggest tracks.
So there's the foreign service, which is what people usually think of as our diplomatic core.
They're the people who rotate around the world every few years, work at different embassies.
Come back to Washington for a few years, then go back overseas.
They spend most of their careers overseas being diplomats.
And then there's the civil service track.
And we stay primarily based in Washington.
And for me, it was a combination of professional and personal reasons
that I decided the civil service track was for me.