SkyStrike

The grass is greener. I know an AU grad who is on his fifth or sixth DC internship, he's been doing them during and after graduation. He is bright and motivated as hell. He recently decided to go to grad school Especially for the intel community, with the budget the way it is, not a good idea to wait on grad school.

I'd choose Gtown. Chances are if you were that competitive for both schools with such a high level of funding you won't have trouble getting a good starting salary after graduation and, whoever you work for may help you with a tuition reimbursement program.

I'll keep that in mind, thank you. Out of all the times I wondered what it'd be like to be a fly on the wall during hiring decision time, that thought about applicant location never even crossed my mind. As for retail/restaurant and other unrelated work, that's another issue I've been having - everyone who does resume review for me suggests I my jobs like that off. So it still leaves a gap. My last DC internship was 2010. The other jobs were for financial services corporations (temp contract ran out).

Prefer not to say but it's not a DC school. Is it really the case that having a DC address will give you a leg up on an application? Just seems ridiculous... Why would an employer just go ahead and assume someone applying to a DC job isn't able to relocate or travel? I guess I just always thought it wasn't the wisest thing to do to, to move to a place without even having a job lined up.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm studying IR/national security. My goal is to serve in the IC after graduation but I'm not sure what the job market will look like by then with sequestration. As for the reason for the gap, aside from school it would be the fact that I just can't get an interview from anyone. Though I haven't kept exact count I feel confident in saying I have applied to close to 600-700 jobs since December, using indeed, bradtraverse, ypfp, LinkedIn, monster, usajobs, federal government agency websites, collegegrad, careerbuilder, defense contractors, financial services companies - positions of varying levels, duties and pay that seem to fit my background. I have no criminal or drug background so that's not it either.

Hello, I was wondering if anyone else here was anticipating going through this same thing while at grad school. Where I am going, full-time or part-time jobs are discouraged and they want students to focus on their coursework and developing foreign language skills. There are assistantships but only a limited amount - you can't really 'plan' that. During the summer between year 1 and 2, they want students to take either an internship or intensive language program. I am thinking of going with the intensive language program because the language I want to study is a difficult one (critical language). However, I am currently unemployed with not a lot of work experience (almost all of it except internships from 3-4 years ago are unrelated to IR/govt). I have been having serious trouble finding a job before Fall 2013. Essentially, if I took the foreign language program during summer 2014 I would graduate in Spring 2015 with absolutely no work experience on the resume since late 2012. Does that pretty much nullify the benefit of having an MA degree? How many hiring managers would realistically choose a candidate that was unemployed (in school or not) for the previous three years? Any suggestions? Are there any others on here who have similar worries about not being able to find work during and after graduate school?

I'd like to know this as well. It's been awhile since I last took out a loan. As far as I know cost of attendance covers living expenses but I'm not sure how the access to the money is determined.

Are you MPIA? I may be looking for a third person for a three-bedroom house, not sure what the status is on my friend's search on that. PM me if interested.

In terms of #3 - what are some funding sources you've now found that you wish you found out earlier?

Is there really no one else on these boards going?

Ahh, missed that...sorry for making you fish that out. Thanks for the info.

The link is down..though after browsing, I didn't see an answer on there to an additional question, which is - can you use graduate plus loans to pay rent/living costs?

I am definitely going. Very pleased with what I saw at the interview conference. Funding varies; I got less than some other people but my GRE/GPA wasn't as high as it should have been. I guess I qualified with experience and some other factors. One thing you should keep in mind though is that allowing out of state students to pay in state tuition is, in itself, a HUGE plus financially. I was accepted to GSPIA and ultimately decided there was no way I could justify paying $25k+ just for tuition versus this option.

Confused about something... I've read that the most a graduate student can take out in federal loans per semester is $10,250. Yet some people here are talking about $120,000? How do you take out that much in federal loans for graduate school?

..Wow. My award was not even close to that. Any way you could PM me your quals/background? I received it yesterday too.