{"id":1028,"date":"2012-06-20T15:46:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T22:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.nau.edu\/news-p\/wordpress\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2012-10-30T11:49:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T18:49:33","slug":"students-future-in-foreign-service-begins-at-nau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/students-future-in-foreign-service-begins-at-nau\/","title":{"rendered":"Student’s future in Foreign Service begins at NAU"},"content":{"rendered":"

Embarking on a career in the U.S. Foreign Service takes initiative, integrity, cultural adaptability, good communication skills and a strong intellectual background. One Northern Arizona University junior demonstrates such promise in these areas that the U.S. Department of State this week announced it will provide support toward the completion of her undergraduate and graduate degrees as she prepares to enter the Foreign Service.<\/p>\n

Mawusi Malik<\/strong>, a political science major minoring in international relations and Asian studies, joins an elite rank of 40 exceptional students nationwide who aspire to enter the United States’ diplomatic corps. These 20 undergraduate and 20 graduate students were awarded\u00a0Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowships<\/a>\u00a0to support their training.<\/p>\n

The realization that Malik could have international influence came last year while she was studying abroad in Morocco. There she said she came face to face with stereotypes about Americans that she wished she could change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hoped I could one day represent America\u2014particularly American women\u2014as culturally sensitive, modern, intellectual and personable,\u201d she said.\u00a0A friend told her about the Pickering program, which she found to be perfectly in line with her interests.<\/p>\n

After a nerve-wracking application and interview process, Malik learned she made the cut, and beginning this fall, the members of this diverse new class of fellows will begin their journey to represent America in world affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is incredible to see that this program is much more than a scholarship,\u201d Malik wrote in her\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0recently while reflecting on her orientation to the program in Washington, D.C. \u201cIt is a network, a support system, a development group. Yes, they give us money for school, but there is so much more to it. Pickering provides mentoring, training, advice and support from Day One throughout our careers in the Foreign Service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malik and her counterparts are the 19th class of Fellows named at the undergraduate level. Selected in their junior year, Pickering Fellows receive financial support toward tuition and other expenses during the senior year and during the first year of graduate study.<\/p>\n

As part of the fellowship, Malik will participate in one internship in D.C. next summer and one to-be-determined overseas internship in 2014, which she hopes will allow her to explore her interest the Middle East. She also is committed to three years of service as a Foreign Service officer.<\/p>\n

For right now, grad school is her main focus, with Georgetown as her top choice, among other schools she\u2019s considering in D.C. and New York City. And among her even shorter-term goals are \u201ckilling the GRE,\u201d training for a marathon and getting a nose piercing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as my career ambitions go, I would be lying to say that I don’t want to be an ambassador someday,\u201d she said. She believes the Pickering program will help put her on that path. \u201cThey made it clear: we have been given this opportunity, and great things are expected of us. And they are behind us to make sure we actually achieve them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Embarking on a career in the U.S. Foreign Service takes initiative, integrity, cultural adaptability, good communication skills and a strong intellectual background. One Northern Arizona University junior demonstrates such promise in these areas that the U.S. Department of State this week announced it will provide support toward the completion of her undergraduate and graduate degrees…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}