SMU students got a taste of civil service Wednesday at the “Careers in Government” brown bag in the Hughes-Trigg Forum.
Five panelists, including several SMU alums, talked about the challenges in their respective fields and described their career paths.
Panelists included Rick Higbie from the State Department, Jan Hart Black, a former Dallas city manager, Vicki Marwood of the FBI, Jeff Jordan with the Health and Human Services Department, and Kim Ngo of the Envioronmental Protection Agency.
“We used to do alumni panels based on major,” said Judy Carr of the Hegi Family Career Development Center, “but then I found that students respond more to industry groups” like the government panel, she said.
The panelists emphasized the importance of getting internships and making connections in the federal government.
Black said that too often students overlook unpaid internships and that there are a variety of ways to get your foot in the door.
Marwood said that landing an internship with the FBI is one of the only ways to break into the Bureau right out of college.
“The average hiring age for the FBI is 30,” she said, but interns get a head start on training and contacts in the industry.
According to Black, “Cities need many disciplines, so really there are multiple avenues for breaking into municipality.” The same is true for jobs across the board in the federal government.
The job descriptions of the panelists ranged from security to chemical analyis.
Ngo, an SMU alumna, graduated with a degree in chemistry. She analyzes drinking water and enforces EPA regulations.
“Whenever you wake up in the morning and turn on the tap, that’s what I work on,” she said.
Fellow SMU alumnus Jeff Jordan, who majored in anthropology and got his master’s in medical anthropology at the University of Texas, works for the department of Health and Human Services as a public health analyst. Jordan conducts evaluations of people and companies that receive a chunk of the department’s $700 billion budget.
But anyone who’s eyeing a higher managerial position should get a master’s degree, she said, something Jordan and Higbie agreed with.
“You need language abilities and technical skills-I can’t emphasize that enough,” said Jordan. Fluency in a foreign language means a pay bump for federal employees, something Jordan says he wish he knew.
Higbie, who provides security for foreign diplomats and travels abroad with U.S. officials, said he loves his job because of the travel. He was originally a police officer in Florida, but he encouraged students to think about starting out in the federal system rather than a state one.
“Federal government service translates to other agencies; that’s not the case with state agencies,” he said.
Two of the most attractive features of a job with the federal government, according to the panelists, were variety and stability.
“Every day is different,” said Marwood, who has worked on task forces for issues ranging from bank fraud to the foreign counterintelligence squad. “I’ve had many mini careers within a career,” she said.
Jordan said the work environment and the purpose of his agency was what kept him on.
“There’s a good benefits package – they take care of you,” he said.
Plus, “My [agency’s] mission is to keep Americans healthy – it’s hard to feel bad about that.”
