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I'm in Public Affairs, which means that we deal with relationships between the Consulate
and people like the media and the general public, so we do a lot with school kids, with
university visitors, a lot with journalists from the different news outlets, and that's
kind of our main focus I guess. I'm in the US Commercial Service, which is
the trade division of the US Consulate General. So we help US companies who want to export
their products to Australia and find a distributor in Australia who's willing to do that, so
helping the trade relationship between Australian companies and US companies.
I'm in Political Economy, or PoliCon, we spend a large proportion of our time preparing briefing
memos and going through scheduling and how we can arrange different meetings with different
prominent political figures and economic figures within the Queensland and New South Wales
jurisdiction. So I'm in Management, basically we do everything
behind the scenes, so we organise all the events, we organise leasing and things like
that, for when diplomats do come in and work here, just kind of anything that needs to
be organised, we're on top of that. I think that one of the highlights for me
is being able to put together a project where it is that you have all the scheduling of
where it is that the Consul General is going to be, you have down to the nitty-gritty and
up to the minute who he's going to be meeting, and then being able to actually personally
brief the Consul General on that, that was something that was actually a real kick.
For me personally, one of the highlights has been being able to go over to the Residence
of the Consul General and have several coffee meetings with a number of the journalists.
So we've had one for ABC journalists, then we had one for journalists from a lot of the
American news outlets like Reuters, and that was incredible - just hearing all those people
talking about their experiences and their life stories up until this point, and that's
been a really big highlight for me. For me as well, going to the Consul General's
Residence and being able to network with people you wouldn't normally meet on a day-to-day
basis, so there were key figures from big accounting firms to corporations to NGOs in
one setting. For me, I've really enjoyed the day-to-day
stuff: I've been given quite a few writing tasks and a lot of research, which I've really
just generally enjoyed. I've been organising the events behind the scenes. Just the whole
thing has been really really good. Personally, the opportunities which we've
actually had here have been just so outside of the usual what you would be exposed to
I think, at least at the internship level and I think that the fact that we've been
so well-integrated into our sections and throughout the rest of the Consulate has been something
that has really been worthwhile for me. After all, one of the first things they told
us when we came in was that this isn't a getting-coffee and doing-photocopies job, and that's been
completely true. We've been doing stuff that any other person working in our sections would
have been doing. And we've also had the opportunity to do things
like Media Training, which I know was really interesting, with one of our media experts
here, and we've also had the chance to talk to a lot of people from different departments,
so it's not just that you stay in your one department the whole time and that's all you
get to know. We've talked to people from all other departments, which includes the departments
of the other interns, and then the bodies that are stationed here, like the Secret Service
and IRS, which has been really interesting. NCIS! NCIS exists!
Really spend a lot of time on your personal reflection statement, because I've heard they
look a lot at that. My advice going in to the group interview
would be that instead of dominating the conversation, try to facilitate.
They want to know how you think, how you process information, and how you respond to a given
scenario. But they're pretty nice about it, they're not just silent waiting for you to
work it out on your own, they'll prompt you... They're working with you. I mean, they're
all really lovely people and I know we were all interviewed by the people we're now working
for, so you get to know them and they know a lot about you, they've gone through your
application and they've been the ones who have said, yes, let's interview this person,
let's have them in. They have quite a large focus on organisational
fit, and so it's how well you can convey your personality and your character both in the
interview setting obviously, but in a written form too.
I guess as closing remarks, I think all of us agree that it's been an absolutely fantastic
experience, and we'd definitely recommend this to anyone, even if, like Mariah said,
you don't have to be a diehard fan of American politics, you don't have to have watched every
episode of the West Wing- It helps! Yeah, it's a great environment, you don't
have to be in to politics, you don't have to know you want to be in diplomacy, a lot
of the skills you learn are really general and applicable everywhere, so yeah, it's just
a really good opportunity and absolutely apply.