Intelligence Officers

Opportunities exist for paid and unpaid internships for college undergraduates and graduates at a number of agencies based in the Washington, D.C., area that deal with foreign and defense policy and other matters of interest to intelligence officers. The FBI, for example, runs the FBI Honors Internship Program (https://fbijobs.gov/students-and-graduates) during the summer. In addition to the Honors Internship Program, the FBI offers several other internship opportunities.

The CIA offers undergraduate internship and co-op programs in Washington, D.C. in the following areas: Analysis; Clandestine, Enterprise and Support; Foreign Language; and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. They are open to highly motivated undergraduates studying a wide variety of fields, including computer science, computer networking, programming, systems analysis, electrical/electronics engineering, hardware engineering, software engineering, aeronautical/aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, biometrics, information networking, mathematics, systems engineering, geography, geoscience, English, journalism, communications, and other majors. Students who are accepted to this program are expected to spend at least three semesters or four quarters on the job prior to graduation. Interested candidates must apply six to nine months before they are available to work, and have at least a 3.0 grade point average. Visit https://www.cia.gov/careers/student-programs for more information.

Read books about intelligence careers, and visit the Web sites of the government intelligence agencies that are listed at the end of this article. The Association of Former Intelligence Officers offers Intelligence as a Career, a free booklet for high school and college students who are considering in the U.S. intelligence community. Visit http://www.afio.com/publications/AFIO_2013_Careers_Booklet.pdf to access the resource.