CIA

[msubelief]

What would you suggest to prepare someone for a career in the CIA, most likely a core collector? As of now, I plan to attend college and take International Studies, Psychology, and Political Science. I am not sure which would be best to major in, and if there are any paths towards a career as a core collector, feel free to explain them.

[BowBall]

Here is some info directly from the cia site:

"Foreign travel and area knowledge, prior residency abroad, cross-cultural sensitivity, and foreign language proficiency (particularly in the critical languages of Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Indonesian, Korean, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu) are highly desirable. Degrees of interest include, but are not limited to, international business, finance or international relations, economics, physical science or nuclear, biological or chemical engineering. "

Hope this helps, maybe someone can elaborate more...

[Twoblock]

msubelief

I strongly suggest that you don't use your college time and money preparing for a job with the CIA or any other Federal Security Agency. They all require a polyghraph and you are more than likely apt to fail it regardless of how honest you are with them. It's a one man one machine call and more than 50% fail it. Usually it's a drug violation whether you ever used or sold drugs or not. There's many stories on here telling of this scenario and they have sworn that they had never touched illegal drugs of any kind. Taking the chance with polygraph is not worth throwing away 4 years of time and money. Read the stories here yourself.

[BowBall]

Good advice.  Unfortunately, I've catered my college experience around the CIA, through two and a half years.  If i don't get into the CIA, my poly sci and arabic/russ degree should get me into other intelligence positions though.  Whatever happens, happens.