A Marine Corps captain asks Best Defense readers for career advice

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Friday, October 26, 2012 - 6:39 AM Share

You can post comments below, or if you like, write to him directly at andrew.bestdefense@gmail.com.

I am an active duty Marine Corps Captain, and a regular reader of your blog. I will be separating from the military soon to attend Harvard Business School next fall. My question for the combined wisdom of your readers is what I should do with my time until school? I have some flexibility with dates, so should I stay in the Marines for a few more months of mundane admin work? Take a well-deserved long vacation after years of training and deployment? I am a signals intelligence officer with an active TS/SCI clearance, and in my perfect world would like to intern (paid or unpaid) in the DC area at the White House, Pentagon, or one of the intel agencies. Do these internships even exist? Any and all advice would be appreciated.

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KYZL ORDA

4:42 PM ET

October 26, 2012

Career Stuff

Congrats, that will be exciting. There are some interesting choices:

1) career-path related internship in your soon-to-be-new field
2) prerequisite classes, if any are needed, or jump start readings and get some of your books now
3) volunteer work would be interesting. Not sure if Peace Corps is an option; if it is I'd absolutely recommend it being a RPCV myself
4) an internship with a gov agency. I'd recommend something related to your future profession. If you want to use your clearance any would be fine then, including State. I loved working at State for 3 of the 4 jobs I had. However, it can be a very politicized place and it's cultural shift thinking-wise, even for civilians. Careers can be ruined for the stupidest things, and it doesnt matter if the employee was right. This problem predates Clinton's time, sorry to say. At least you know who the enemy is in Iraq and Afghanistan
5. There is life after government. I am back in school and pursuing pre-med coursework. It's a joy to meet others with different career paths and sharing the same professional interests, and mindsets that are so different from the world of government. It's great to be human again

Good luck in your work

 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.

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