[RedIrish]

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take a look at what type of job requirements are being asked for at the United Nations jobs site.

My cousin is an environmental engineer with a civil engineering background. He has worked internationally for years, first for the federal government, then the World Bank and IMF, he has pulled a couple consultancy jobs for the United Nations, and has worked all over the world from Sarejevo to China to Argentina to Iceland.

There are also a lot of jobs for consultants with MBAs and a background in internation business. Economics can be a good starting place, if that is where your interests take you.

However, I don't think IT will do it for you. Every Tom, Dick and Harry from here to India and back has an IT degree, nobody needs to import IT people, and if they do, there is always someone who will work cheaper than you. Same with teaching English as a second language, it's a low pay, low skill, dead end job that a lot of college grads take in order to pay their way through a year long global holiday.

[MakingIn]

Personally I'm majoring in geology, but I plan on teaching English in China for a year or two after I graduate just to have the experience and to get really good at Chinese. I know you can get a job in Korea, Japan, or China teaching English as a second language with just about any bachelor's degree.

As for full blown careers, the ones I've had interaction with that almost always involve a lot of travel are people in the petroleum industry (engineers, geologists, etc), some jobs in the mining industry, and a some civil engineering jobs (although these seem to be a bit more rare).

[Takeru]

Originally Posted by RedIrish To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

However, I don't think IT will do it for you. Every Tom, Dick and Harry from here to India and back has an IT degree, nobody needs to import IT people, and if they do, there is always someone who will work cheaper than you. Same with teaching English as a second language, it's a low pay, low skill, dead end job that a lot of college grads take in order to pay their way through a year long global holiday.

Well I would consider teaching English in said country a holiday, but I would also consider it an experience something like studying abroad. But you learn more culturally by teaching there than by studying abroad there as you are forced to learn about certain things about the culture of a country by first hand contact with real life students of that city.

It is true that IT is pretty common most parts of the worlds where technology is used. But that same reason is why it is possible to actually work in an IT field in and around those countries.

I'm not too... well suited in economics, but there seems to be quite a lot of different jobs the UN need.

	Originally Posted by MakingIn To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Personally I'm majoring in geology, but I plan on teaching English in China for a year or two after I graduate just to have the experience and to get really good at Chinese. I know you can get a job in Korea, Japan, or China teaching English as a second language with just about any bachelor's degree.

That is what I want to do too, for the experience. The only thing I am afraid of is how long a year or two away from my actual major will hurt my chances of getting a job anywhere. That is, unless I continue self studying and doing self projects while I am in said country teaching English. I suppose like a digital portfolio of what I have been doing while I have been teaching and having an experience people rarely have. Building models and programs for my intended job purposes. Helping students on free time with similar interest as I have in the IT field (probably somewhere around middle school or high school for them.) Coming up with things for free just to help the particular school I work in just to not lose all I have learned here. I doubt the school will trust me with its networking infrastructure though since... I would be considered a temporary teacher.

But this is just a load of
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that I do not know since I haven't even have that experience yet, and I don't know of others around me who have.

It would allow me to say "Hey, I worked in the IT field in here, here, here, and here. I've had experiences with these people, their place, and their problems."

[Thinker]

The large accounting firms send people all around the globe.

At the risk of being ridiculed for suggesting work as an auditor....you did say that travel was an important aspect of the role
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There is a huge shortage of auditors (globally) and different jurisdictions have different reporting cycles requiring auditors at different times over the year.

The young auditors I have contact with spend time in Russia, Mongolia, the "stan" countries Poland, China, Vietnam, Turkey etc etc.

An industry which is international and tends to send its young graduates around the world is the mining industry. Geology, Geophysics, Mechanical/Chemical/Structural Engineering, Finance graduates all travel once they have proven themselves.

Just a few thoughts.

[Mogura]

If you really want to immerse yourself in a culture and bring back a positive impression of a country, sometimes teaching English in that country is not always the best approach.

There are public schools, and there are language schools--which are actually businesses. If you can score a position with a public school, then you will learn a lot about the culture and have a positive experience (hopefully). If you score a position with a language school, well, it's all about the bottom line, and depending on the country, labor laws can be near to nonexistent or never followed. This can ruin your experience real fast.

You should be checking into study abroad options within your university. To me, that would be the best way to immerse yourself in a culture for a long term...

[Takeru]

Originally Posted by Mogura To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

If you really want to immerse yourself in a culture and bring back a positive impression of a country, sometimes teaching English in that country is not always the best approach. There are public schools, and there are language schools--which are actually businesses. If you can score a position with a public school, then you will learn a lot about the culture and have a positive experience (hopefully). If you score a position with a language school, well, it's all about the bottom line, and depending on the country, labor laws can be near to nonexistent or never followed. This can ruin your experience real fast. You should be checking into study abroad options within your university. To me, that would be the best way to immerse yourself in a culture for a long term...

Typically, the programs I have research thus far put you right into the public schools. Whether it be rural, suburban, or metro city, it depends where they need you to teach that is really the question.

---------- Post added 02-03-2010 at 08:33 PM ----------

Navy (depends)
Peace Corps. (sounds fun but I might do it at a later time.)
Foreign Service/State Department (sounds ok need to research on that though.)
Global Studies (I am thinking of this quite a bit right now.)

Malkavia?

Apparently I focus on a region I want to study about. This could be anything from political, economical, or cultural about the area. I'm probably going to be choosing Asia (because I have more areas I am interested there than in Europe.) I am also required to choose a/couple languages to learn from for the areas I want to study. I would probably will be going with Mandarin Chinese and Japanese (they don't offer Korean at the college I may end up transferring into.) And I'll have to minor in one of them too.

Is this sort of what you are doing when you are doing international studies and Arabic?

[Malkavia]

Most global studies programs require a study abroad. I honestly wouldnt trust the program if it DIDNT require a study abroad.

You can always check out its rankings as well.
--------
EDIT:To your edit - I PMed you
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[larkin]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	INternational jobs are hard to come by. If you're extremely high IQ and can pony up Ivy League credentials, then you could probably land one with a business, IR, or econ degree. If you can't pony up Ivy League credentials, then you'll have to know someone.

You're right about the english degree generally. Although the State Department offers
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. That's another year of school for the training.

International work can be a little clique-y, but not too bad if you've actually done the work - usually through the government, volunteering, or the Peace Corps. I wouldn't necessarily say it requires Ivy League credentials. Some schools are more favored than others, but I definitely wouldn't think that just having a swell degree will work. A degree without any experience won't get you anywhere (unless you have a serious connection.)

	Originally Posted by paleoeco To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Check out the available jobs with the Foreign Service / State Department. There are lots of different opportunities in embassies around the world: development, IT/technical, PR, etc.

These jobs require getting into the State Department's Foreign Service. As TigerL touches on, there is a Foreign Service exam that is administered once every two years, make an inquiry about it at your university. (You don't have to be a student, just ask the largest, best university with an international affairs major that you could reasonably travel to for the exam.) Those who pass the exam are invited back to the State Department for a series of interviews and further testing. This and the Peace Corps are the most democratic way of getting involved.

But, if pay is your concern, I would say stick with a combo of technical expertise and an international affairs major, and then apply for jobs with an international consulting firm like Booz Allen, Deloitte, Accenture, etc. There are plenty of countries that need consultants on everything from small to medium enterprise development to tax law to IT systems.

[Malkavia]

By the way I completely disagree with needing Ivy League credentials.

Its all about who you know. The international world (ESPECIALLY American expatriates) is very clique-y like Larkin said. It is extremely important that you learn to make contacts and get friends. One you are inside the circle, you're usually in for good.

Going into government work such as the State Dept will get you inside the International USA government world only, not the American expatriate world. It also depends strongly on what you choose. For instance, almost all American expatriates in the Middle East know each other and are good friends. It is a community and you have to learn to be a part of it.

[Merle]

I would say a degree like economics is the most widely applicable in a variety of international jobs.

Most people I know that work internationally studied economics. My dad is one of them - he did economics and human geography at undergraduate and then international development at masters level. He then got a job for a international development think tank, and from there startedas a junior economist in DFID (the department for international development - in the UK government). He spent his whole working career at DFID and has worked all over the world - we lived in Malawi, Fiji and Kenya for long periods. He is now a self employed consultant and travels around the world doing work for the UN, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, various government agencies and governments themselves.

My boyfriend is an American working in London, his degree was in Business management and Economics and then he did an MA in Social Policy, he works as a technology consultant for a huge international firm. (most of his peers studied Economics or management) - a large number of his colleagues are Americans. (He's also in the middle of the Foreign Service assessment...it is a very tough process - while I wouldn't want to discourage you from it, I would say don't count on getting through it)

Banks also have huge international presences and there too Economics would be a good base degree.

[mormeguil]

I might be crazy but I sense a trend from all the answer. There is a lot of "I know a lot of person who have done *These* "

*These* are either:
-people who work/study in the same branch as you and just happen to do it abroad.
- people who know a lot of other people all in the same circle that work abroad.

From these I would say that the job itself is not that important. As long as it's a skill that can be adatpted to other countries and that require some level of education no available elsewhere.

What seems to be important is to have the contact and be on the watch to always promote yourself as one willing, valid and an overall good canditate for abroad work.

[Causa Mortis]

Gosh I hope that econ is an easily applied degree internationally.

If PhD applications don't work out, then I'm going to fight hard for an international job. I'll have an MA, and a few connections through a professor who worked in country risk analysis.

[TigerL]

	Originally Posted by Malkavia To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Going into government work such as the State Dept will get you inside the International USA government world only, not the American expatriate world. It also depends strongly on what you choose. For instance, almost all American expatriates in the Middle East know each other and are good friends. It is a community and you have to learn to be a part of it.

I find that it's easy to make friends with people when abroad. Back in the 1990s, I spent time in China and it wasn't long before I was introduced to the ex-pat community where we were. My classmates and I were pretty quickly accepted into the English-speaking community in the city we were in - most of them were not Americans but people from Australia, the UK, Canada, New Zealand. There were also people from India, Pakistan, and Germany. I didn't see a line between the people who worked for their gov'ts and those who did not.

I have another friend who had a similar experience in Hong Kong of all places.

[Malkavia]

Originally Posted by TigerL To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I find that it's easy to make friends with people when abroad. Back in the 1990s, I spent time in China and it wasn't long before I was introduced to the ex-pat community where we were. My classmates and I were pretty quickly accepted into the English-speaking community in the city we were in - most of them were not Americans but people from Australia, the UK, Canada, New Zealand. There were also people from India, Pakistan, and Germany. I didn't see a line between the people who worked for their gov'ts and those who did not. I have another friend who had a similar experience in Hong Kong of all places.

It must be different in the Middle East, just differences in regions I guess. My experience has been a little different.

This is ESPECIALLY true of Iraq. People who work for the government stay in the green zone while journalist and humanitarian organizations work inside and outside the green zone.

There are lots of different types of communities, I'm glad to see the Hong Kong region is very accepting.

[larkin]

	Originally Posted by Malkavia To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	This is ESPECIALLY true of Iraq. People who work for the government stay in the green zone while journalist and humanitarian organizations work inside and outside the green zone.

The more dangerous the assignment, the larger the divide between government/NGOs. Any U.S. government employee in a country with State department-restricted travel (except those with non-official cover status) have serious limitations on travel. The same is true for the U.N. employees. It's as frustrating for them as it is for anyone.