The Foreign Service Journal, June 2020

70 JUNE 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT best effort, regardless of whether or not they get a letter grade. Also, students should keep in mind that teachers are still going to write future letters of recommendations for colleges. Will they say that when the going got tough, the student took a hiatus from hard work? Conscientious effort will continue to be rewarded. Extracurricular activities. College admissions officers have reiterated that they understand what students are going through, and thus know that extracur- ricular activities will be interrupted. But what else will you be doing with your time outside of class? Jeff Schiffman, the director of admis- sions at Tulane University, says: “If you include on your Common Application activities section a list of all the books you read for pleasure during your social distancing, I’ll love it. Get creative … We will love seeing anything you did during this wacky time.” AP exams, SAT subject tests, IB exams, A-levels, French Baccalaureate exams—oh, my! The big news this year is that the AP exam will be a 45-min- ute, online exam, instead of the usual 3-hour exam, and will cover content taught up until March only instead of the entire year’s course. Will colleges still grant credit for three-quarters of a class? This is still being discussed by many universities. The International Baccalaure- ate exams were also canceled for this year’s seniors, and graduating senior IB Diploma candidates will not be penal- ized for it. However, current juniors in the IB Diploma program still need to remain focused; everyone expects that next year, the IB exams will be back. Students should try to put forth their best effort, regardless of whether or not they get a letter grade. I nternships are great for professional experience: they build the student’s résumé, and they guide the student in determining a job path and/or graduate degree program. But for students interested in work- ing in foreign affairs, there’s one big problem: most avail- able internships are in the Washington, D.C., area. And for many geographically challenged students, it simply isn’t possible to move there for an unpaid temp job. That’s where FSFS comes in. Launched in 2009 in the Department of State as the Virtual Student Foreign Service program, it allows students to work remotely for a federal agency. In 2017 VSFS changed its name to “Virtual Student Federal Service,” to reflect the fact that there are now more than 70 participating organizations, more than 40 of which are federal agencies, including USDA, VA, DHS, DOS, OPM and HHS. The State Department has led the effort to get American college students from around the world involved in our foreign policy process through this e-internship program. While VSFS interns are unpaid, students benefit by gaining professional experience and marketable skills, increased knowledge about a particular agency, network- ing contacts and a line item on their résumé showing they have interned for a federal agency or internationally recognized organization. Excerpted from an article by Jacob Borst in the December 2019 FSJ . Jacob Borst interned with AFSA and The Foreign Service Journal in summer 2018, with the Virtual Student Federal Service during the 2018-2019 school year, and with the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in summer 2017. For more on the VSFS opportunity, please see the feature story by Avha Sadeghi, “How to Intern at State Without Leaving Home,” in the January-February 2015 FSJ . FROM THE FSJ EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT DECEMBER 2019 VSFS: The Federal Government’s E-Internship Program BY JACOB BORST