If you had asked me what I wanted to do for a living when I was at the U of A, I would have answered: "Some kind of cool international job." But, because I didn't know what jobs existed or how to get them (the internet hadn't yet been invented), I went to law school. Then I joined the Marine Corps as a Judge Advocate (lawyer). Besides the usual legal matters a J.A. does, I also got to teach International Humanitarian Law in Asia and Africa. Unrelated to law, I was selected to become a Foreign Area Officer (a specialist in international relations) and a Military Attaché (a military diplomat who handles the military portfolio at U.S. embassies), which is how I spent the majority of my 25 years in the Marines. My overseas assignments in the Marine Corps included Japan, Oman, Iraq, Senegal, Germany, and France. After I retired from the Marines, I joined the Foreign Service of the State Department and have so far served in India, the United Arab Emirates, and currently Algeria.
In both the Marine Corps and the State Department, my U of A education has helped me every step of the way. The cultural curiosity I got from my U of A Anthropology education has been key to my ability to thrive in so many countries and cultures. The fluency in French I got from my U of A French education (supplemented by an academic year in France) has been the determining factor in my assignments to Senegal, France, and Algeria as well as several short term assignments throughout francophone Africa. In every case, my French fluency from my studies at the U of A put me linguistically far ahead of my peers and has been key to my success. As a person who has also studied languages at the Defense Language Institute and the Foreign Service Institute, I can tell you that they simply cannot match the fluency you will get from a U of A Bachelor's Degree supplemented by some language studies overseas.
