Major/career field for a kid interested in working for the feds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accounting and learn Farsi or Arabic

I agree about the languages especially critical ones (Chinese, Farsi, Arabic, Russian, etc). Accounting too. Government agencies are desperately looking for Americans who speak another language or more. Some even offer a $20,000 hiring incentive.

Of these, Arabic and Farsi are scarcer and government agencies find these harder to come by. Unless your family speaks at least some Chinese at home, Chinese is going to be an uphill climb, plus there are many other kids who already know Chinese plus English.

DC started Chinese in 2nd grade and is now in 11th grade. Since we don't speak Chinese at home, DC takes evening conversational Chinese twice a week in addition to the 5 days at school, immersion summers, and watches Chinese TV and reads newspapers. While not the optimum situation, it is far better than no exposure at all and DC is quite advanced. In college, DC will go into Level IV and above conversational Chinese. While DC won't major in Chinese, it will be the minor.

I hardly think any government agency would kick DC to the curb because DC isn't Chinese and had no home spoken Chinese. However, you are correct about Farsi and Arabic, and there are numerous summer programs for high school students to get started.

[Anonymous]

Right now, there are so many returning veterans looking for entry-level jobs. The way the government hires, veterans get extra "points" on their application. It's a sort of affirmative action. It makes it very hard for non-veterans to get entry-level jobs. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just something to be aware of for non military.

You should look at the Presidential Management Internship programs, although that requires a Masters Degree. In my experience, that is where many of the entry-level "superstars" come from in the federal government.

[Anonymous]

I totally agree pp. I'm a career director at GWU and we just had someone speak yesterday from a government agency. Vets do get a huge preference, so if your kid really wants to work for the feds OP...they should join the military and/or go to a military academy. Many of the fed internship programs have been cut.

[Anonymous]

Statistics is alway a good choice if he has math aptitude. He can work in many fields and agencies (although maybe not FBI). It's useful in social science positions and public health and EPA not to mention polling data and the census.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree pp. I'm a career director at GWU and we just had someone speak yesterday from a government agency. Vets do get a huge preference, so if your kid really wants to work for the feds OP...they should join the military and/or go to a military academy. Many of the fed internship programs have been cut.

OP here, I agree that the military is a great path to the feds, but it seems very unlikely that he'd qualify given the medical issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right now, there are so many returning veterans looking for entry-level jobs. The way the government hires, veterans get extra "points" on their application. It's a sort of affirmative action. It makes it very hard for non-veterans to get entry-level jobs. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just something to be aware of for non military.

You should look at the Presidential Management Internship programs, although that requires a Masters Degree. In my experience, that is where many of the entry-level "superstars" come from in the federal government.

Agree, and this is true even in fields/agencies you wouldn't expect. I know a couple people involved in hiring for natural resources/science positions, and the process would leave them frustrated. They would be forwarded a certain # of candidates by HR, and all, or almost all, would be veterans that didn't have the necessary education/experience necessary for the position. But their veteran status would rank them higher than the experienced, non-veteran candidates. In one case, someone was transferred internally to fill the position instead.

I'm all for giving vets a leg up when they return from service but there has to be some common sense involved- I don't think veteran status should trump candidates who are more qualified.