The first place to start looking for IC scholarships is the United States Intelligence Community student opportunity webpage . It can serve as a portal to the popular programs currently available. Upon my own investigation of this site, I found that all of the links to the agencies were broken. They display the correct links in the text, but the links are incorrect. I have the working hyperlinks listed here:

• Central Intelligence Agency
• Defense Intelligence Agency
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• National Security Agency
• Office of Naval Intelligence

As I said in my earlier post, the great advantage of securing an IC scholarship/internship is having the government not only pay for the majority of your undergraduate degree, but also provide annual internships until graduation. After graduation, the agency will have a job with you name on it. You get to work with some of world’s most intelligent and driven individuals, and as FBI veteran Joe Koletar briefly mentions in his FBI Career Guide book, you can pull the “secret agent card” on dates. Don’t become blinded by the monetary figures and promised glory. A job in the IC is not for the light-hearted. Expect work in the IC to be challenging, competitive , and stressful. An IC agency may pay for your college degree and provide you internships, but in return, you owe them several years of your life.

The IC offers many different types of scholarship and internship programs targeted at different class standings and skill-sets. I will broadly cover the scholarships that I think would be most relevant. In the first installment of six, I have researched the Central Intelligence Agency.

CIA

Scholarships

The CIA has a program entitled, the Undergraduate Scholarship Program. It offered to anyone who meets serveral requirements:

• US citizenship
• 3.0/4.0 scale high school or college GPA or higher
• Financial need as demonstrated by the household income ceiling of $70,000 for a family of four, and $80,000 for a family of five or more
• Meet the same employment standards as permanent employees, successfully completing both security and medical processing
• Available to work in the Washington, DC area during your periods of employment

This scholarship includes health, dental and vision insurance, life insurance, and retirement; and up to $18,000 per calendar year for tuition, mandatory fees, books, and supplies. You must be able to work in the DC area every summer, and upon graduation must work for the CIA approximately 1.5 the amount of time you held the scholarship.

DEADLINE: July 15 - November 1
To apply for this position visit the Undergraduate Scholarship Program page.

Internships

The CIA has several programs each focused on different skill-sets. Like the scholarship, they have some universal eligibility requirements:

• American citizenship
• GPA of 3.0
• Eligible to be granted a security clearance
• DC-based location
• Work either a combination of one semester and one summer internship or two 90-day summer internships
• Haven’t used illegal drugs within the last 12 months

Analysis

Analysis undergraduate interns work on teams with our full-time analysts. They research, analyze, write, and brief on international political, military, economic, scientific, technical, and leadership developments. In addition to their analytic responsibilities, undergraduate interns become familiar with the Agency and Intelligence Community by participating in a range of meetings and projects.

National Clandestine Service

The National Clandestine Service Internship Program is designed to give a limited number of talented undergraduate students the opportunity to work in supporting the NCS mission of collecting human intelligence on critical international developments. The NCS intern will be part of a unique world of important events and meaningful accomplishments.

Network Engineer

Support Services trainee program seeks motivated undergraduate students to serve internships in a team environment working with customers and network engineers to design, develop, and implement new network architectures and enhancements to the Agency’s networks. These projects span technologies in local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and video teleconferencing. Responsibilities include hardware and software integration, analysis, testing, documentation, problem resolution, requirements definition, and project documentation. Candidate will also participate in engineering reviews, staff meetings, and other activities, which will increase their network understanding and the issues and challenges facing a telecommunications service provider.

Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance Internship

The Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR) is the National Reconnaissance Office’s research, policy analysis, and history component. CSNR products and activities help define and explain the discipline, practice, and history of national reconnaissance. CSNR functions are intended to help provide NRO leadership with a historical context and conceptual focus for its policy and programmatic decisions. CSNR also responds to today’s reality of an increasingly open NRO, and helps to inform and educate the national reconnaissance community.

The CSNR internship program seeks qualified candidates for undergraduate and graduate student internship opportunities. The CSNR internship offers candidates a wide range of work assignments. Interns will assist in CSNR’s three program areas: Research, Studies and Analysis; History; and Recognition, Exhibits and Outreach. CSNR interns perform classified and unclassified research for briefings, presentations, oral and program histories, policy decision risk assessments, and a variety of other products. The CSNR internship is an excellent academic and professional opportunity for students in the fields of political science, history, international affairs, or similar areas of study.

Open Source Officer (co-op)

Open Source program seeks motivated undergraduate students pursuing degrees in a variety of liberal arts degree programs to work as Open Source Officers (OSO). OSOs are the Intelligence Community’s foreign media experts. They use foreign language and area knowledge to review and assess foreign open media sources, which include Internet sites, newspapers, press agencies, television, radio and specialized publications. OSOs collect intelligence from these media and deliver high-impact products to policymakers, negotiators, military planners, and analysts throughout the US foreign affairs community. Undergraduate co-ops will use their foreign language skills and area knowledge to contribute to the drafting of informational and analytic products; edit translated materials for grammatical accuracy; and to conduct foreign website searches.

DEADLINES FOR INTERNSHIPS: Open Until November 1 (co-op is different )

Apply by by submitting your resume.

Everyone has been asking me about CyberCIEGE, even the people that are helping out at the Future Forum table (tomorrow). The SRA Club has had if for over a semester, and everyone should know what it is by now. Here is the description from the Naval Postgraduate School:

CyberCIEGE enhances information assurance education and training through the use of computer gaming techniques such as those employed in SimCity™ and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. In the CyberCIEGE virtual world, users spend virtual money to operate and defend their networks, and can watch the consequences of their choices, while under attack.

In its interactive environment, CyberCIEGE covers the significant aspects of network management and defense. Players of this video game purchase and configure workstations, servers, operating systems, applications, and network devices. They make tradeoffs and prioritization decisions as they struggle to maintain the ideal balance between budget, productivity, and security. In its longer scenarios, users advance through a series of stages and must protect increasingly valuable corporate assets against escalating attacks.