Third Week of A-100

This week's highlight was the three-day offsite retreat at "The Woods" in West Virginia. We were loaded on two buses and driven a couple hours into the mountains for two days of teambuilding exercises and creative problem-solving. The trip also involved meals with our CDOs and class mentor, which involved lots of interesting stories and a little nervousness as we all knew that the CDOs were also using those days to sit down together and make decisions about which of the posts on our bid list each of us would be assigned. On the second evening there was a performance by our musically and dramatically talented members, called the A-100 Follies, which was amazingly good - especially considering they only had a few days to put it all together. The band was especially outstanding. That was followed by a big drinking party. On Friday we all piled back on the buses and came home.

Second Week of A-100

The second week was about as much of a whirlwind as the first. There is so much to learn and most of it is entirely too fascinating; there are still people waiting to ask questions as every session comes to an end. A big focus of Week Two focused on the bid lists that we received at the end of Week One. Today Bongsu and I met my Career Development Officer to discuss our goals and get a bit of a reality check. Actually, it turns out our expectations were perhaps not all that far from reality to begin with, although with a class of 92 people there will be a lot of competition for the top choices on our list. In any case, we know that whatever the assignment ends up being, we'll have a great experience.

The only question I have left is how I can survive waiting over a month to find out what that first post will be! I'm hoping that the continuing flood of new information will help keep me distracted! ^^

First Week of A-100

Aside from getting to meet a good number of my new colleagues, the exciting thing about Week One was seeing the Bid List. This is a list of posts where the people in our class might go on our first tour. Each post includes a location (an embassy or consulate abroad), job function (mostly Consular [visa interviews and American Citizen Services]), approximate start date, and required language skills.

Because our class is big, our bid list is long, which is great because it really covers the whole world - there's a lot of diversity and so, I am sure, something for everyone! By Wednesday we have to turn in the list with each post ranked High, Medium-high, Medium or Low.

An Auspicious Start

Well, here we are.

I and my 91 colleagues in the 144th Junior Officer Orientation Class have spent the last two days at the Harry Truman Building (aka "Main Sate") in DC, doing in-processing. Mostly it's been lectures on security and classified information, as well as some on retirement plans, health insurance, and other issues that you would expect to hear about when starting any new job. Also today we had our ID badges made, so we'll be able to get into buildings.

It's been fun to meet everyone and to soak up the atmosphere of the Department. There are displays of photographs and historic artifacts of diplomacy all over.

My only suggestion for improvement, so far, would be that they might have given us a list of each of our classmates' name, career track, hometown and photo. That would have helped with the daunting task of trying to meet 88 other people all at once, plus answering some questions that it seems kind of strange we still don't know the answers to (like our class's ratio of men to women, number of local hires, that kind of thing). I'm undecided as to whether age should also be on that list - I would definitely say yes, but I expect some people would rather not disclose their age.

From what I've been able to glean so far, we seem a diverse and very interesting group. I am greatly looking forward to getting to know everyone better!