Angell Kim, a 2010 Marcus High School graduate and member of the 2014 graduating class at the University of Texas at Austin, just learned she won’t need to worry about paying for her senior year—or her first year of graduate school.
“I was selected one out of the 20 students in the nation to receive a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship,” said Kim, an International Relations and East Asian Studies major
The fellowship provides up to $40,000 per year to participants as they prepare for a career in foreign service.
“During the summer after graduating from our undergraduate institutions and after our first year of graduate school, we will complete a domestic internship with the State Department and an international internship. After our graduate studies, we will take the Foreign Service Officer Test and then serve for three years.”
The Foreign Service is a corps of working professionals who support the President and Secretary of State in pursuit of the goals and objectives of American foreign policy.
Foreign Service officers are “front-line” personnel who can be sent anywhere in the world, at any time, in service to the diplomatic needs of the United States.
The Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship is named in honor of one of the most distinguished and capable American diplomats of the latter half of the 20th century.
Pickering holds the title of Career Ambassador, the highest title in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Ambassador to Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, India, and the Russian Federation, finishing his career as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
The Pickering Fellowship encourages women, members of minority groups and students with financial need to apply. The goal is to attract outstanding students from all ethnic, racial and social backgrounds who have an interest in pursuing a Foreign Service career in the U.S. Department of State.
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