another confused college kid

October 19, 2011 7:51 PM

Help me figure out possible career choices if I want to move away from software development to making use of foreign language skills?

I'm currently a college junior. I will be getting a degree in Computer Science in a year and I may be minoring in Chinese. Last summer, I worked an internship for a software company and have since determined that I'd prefer not do software work (although I will if I can't get any other jobs). I enjoy learning languages and I'm taking multiple at the moment (French, Japanese, Chinese). I would prefer a career that could make use of my foreign language skills, and preferably one that would take me abroad.

So a rundown of languages I know:
- Chinese: I can speak it with native fluency and read newspapers and some modern literature. I don't write that well though. I've taken two semesters of it in college so far and I would like to take more, but that depends on availability of classes.
- French: I took this for five years during middle/high school and then two semesters in college. I'm certainly not fluent, although I'd like to study abroad and increase my fluency.
- Japanese isn't worth mentioning since I'm just taking the intro class now for fun.

I'll be finishing all of my CS requirements at the end of this school year, so I could technically graduate, but I think I'll use my last year to study abroad instead. My options are either France or China (or both), and I haven't quite decided yet.

Here's a number of career options I've considered:

NSA/various other intel services - they seem to want to hire people who speak/read/write Mandarin Chinese, all of which I can do (although with some room for improvement on the reading/writing). I can see a few problems:
- How competitive are the language internships? Most of my Chinese abilities aren't evidenced on paper, since I was able to skip out of a bunch of basic classes. Also, my overall GPA is not particularly great due to CS (3.0), although I may be able to raise it before I apply next year.
- I don't know if the security clearance would pose a problem. I am a US citizen, but a naturalized one. Both my parents are also naturalized citizens, but my grandparents (the ones who are alive) aren't. Does the background check go that far and/or do they care?

Foreign Service Officer - this would be great, except that the FSO exam looks hard, and thus I'd need lots of backup options
- Would it be any easier if I went the Foreign Service Specialist route for IT? The problem is that most of my experience is in software dev and not IT, and their hiring cycles seem pretty sporadic.

Translation/Interpretation - I can only translate/interpret from Chinese to English, since I doubt I can write well enough in Chinese to do so the other way around. However, I'd like to make this semi-stable and not just the occasional freelance job, and I'm not sure how to progress to that step. It also seems like I would need specialized training before anyone will trust me to interpret.

Any advice on any of the above options or other suggestions?

Thanks!

posted by movicont to work & money (10 answers total)

Your naturalization status may hold you back from some intelligence work.

Your best bet is to go to your college career services office. Tell them what you've told us. I promise you that those people have some links to people that recruit for the intelligence community and you can have a face-to-face conversation and find out if you qualify.

In the meantime:
no drugs
don't do anything stupid and illegal
keep your interactions with foreign nationals to a minimum (and by that I mean do not have sex with one)
posted by k8t at 8:03 PM on October 19, 2011

Wit outgoing into detail, I know someone who was in a similar situation to you ( naturalized, gra dparents still in country), but with a few other complicating factors who was able to get top secret clearance relatively painlessly and now is doing quite well in an intelligence career. Me mail if you want a few more details than I am comfortable providing here.

That said, anecdotes are not data. Based on others I know in intelligence, it wouldn't hurt to look at grad school and make sure you have some substantive social science coursework. Also, if toucan up the fluency in Fremch or persevere with Japanese, it will open up other options for you.

A friend from law school speaks Amd reads/writes Japanese fluently as well as French and has some tech chops. After doing well in law school, he now works in Japan for a US law firm, earning a lot of money doing legal work in Japanese, English, and French for multinational tech companies. Hot for everyone, but I know several law people who were able to use strong language skills tobe more marketable to firms in a slow market.

Another friend uses Chinese and Spanish to travel a lot doing work in finance.

From what I have seen,language skills can enhance q career in most fields but do not, by themselves, qualify you for much. Think about what you love to do, workon getting more skilled at it,and use the language skills along the way.my 2 cents.
posted by eleanna at 9:01 PM on October 19, 2011

Quite honestly, combining language with software development is a powerful combination that gives you a) mobility b) access to higher paying jobs.

The thing to do would be to move to Beijing or Hong Kong and work for a foreign company (they pay much better) and make some money. While you're doing that you can figure out what you want to do, such as interpretation or translation.

I can't really recommend translation as an end goal. For one thing, it's not scalable. You have to writer every word yourself (sure, there are programs like Trados that automate the process, but still). Most translators have a) very good reading proficiency b) are very good writers c) specialize specialize specialize.

If you do software work overseas, you may be able to work as an in-house translator, and learn the craft on the job.

Interpreting is another kettle of fish. It is a very demanding job. Some are great at it, some are not.

I learned Japanese after the age of 24, and I became a translator. So even if you think your Chinese is not good enough now, with a little hard work, it will be.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:33 PM on October 19, 2011

I can't give you advice on the language aspect, but I noticed you mentioned potentially going into IT over developing. Words of wisdom: if you can program and you've got the knack for the software development industry, don't go into IT. The job will be (most likely be) less rewarding, less intellectually stimulating, and lower-paying.
posted by kthxbi at 10:19 PM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

The thing to do would be to move to Beijing or Hong Kong and work for a foreign company (they pay much better) and make some money

Agree about it being better to work for a foreign company, but I would leave Hong Kong off the list of suggested cities (I am assuming the OP is fluent in Mandarin and not Cantonese and Mandarin is not the main language in Hong Kong). Also try Shanghai, Shenzhen, and other large cities in Mainland China.

Another reason it might be better to get hired by a foreign company is that Chinese companies sometimes are prejudiced against Chinese-Americans (i.e. they want a "foreign-looking" person at their company and don't see Chinese-Americans as really being American.) THis is assuming you are Chinese-American.
posted by bearette at 11:23 PM on October 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you're into management, you could position yourself quite nicely in some international software company but doing no software development and all people and project management. Then use that experience to move to any other industry and continent that suits your tastes.

For example, China is increasingly active in Africa and will doubtless come out firmly on top when the dust clears in certain areas. You could make yourself a big cheese in some lovely corner of French-speaking Africa working for a Chinese company and then be in position to ride the next big wave that comes along -- stay in Africa? go to China? Europe? North America? You will have your pick.
posted by pracowity at 1:56 AM on October 20, 2011

1. Lots of intelligence jobs require that you have software engineering or something similar. Check out usajobs.com and look up some defense contractors.
2. As long as you're a US citizen, you won't have problems getting your clearance. Dual citizenship may be an issue, depending on how you received the other citizenship, though you technically needed to denounce your other citizenship upon naturalization anyway.
3. You can have serious friendships and relationships with foreign nationals and still get a clearance. Just be aware that you'll need to declare them on your SF-86. Depending on the extent of the relationship and the origin of the friend/partner, this could slow your clearance process down a bit.
4. A translator friend of mine informed translators are only really taken seriously when they translate in one direction, from their learned language to their mother tongue, and usually only in one language. Think of your limitations as an advantage in this field.
5. Don't be scared of the FSOT. It's fun, and it could open some fun doors if you're patient and impressive enough. There's a great yahoo support group, just take a few steps back from the drama and the nerves and it's a helpful resource.
6. You don't have to take the FSOT to be an FSO, they have a security specialty and others that might be well suited to your education. Specialists don't need to take the FSOT. Diplomatic Security personnel have told me they have the better job.

Good luck.
posted by hipersons at 3:40 AM on October 20, 2011

Perhaps consider entrepreneurial things on the China side? You have a great set of skills for co-founding a startup that serves the Chinese market (Chinese Language, Comp Sci, and *ability to travel to the US*). I have no idea of what your interest in business is, of course. Memail me if you want to continue the discussion in more depth!
posted by gregglind at 7:59 AM on October 20, 2011

Seconding KokuRyu. You'd be a huge asset to a development company which is implementing its software abroad. I've done translation of industry-specific software before, but if I had been more fluent in the target language and had any programming experience, it would have become a career, not just a contract. Once the software was translated, there was tons of work to be done abroad with documentation, training, implementation, troubleshooting, customizing parts of the software, etc.
posted by bluebelle at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the answers everyone!

As far as going into IT -- I would only do that if I get to do that as an attachment to the foreign service and (thus) get the chance to travel to a number of different countries on the job. If this weren't the case I'd definitely choose development.
posted by movicont at 4:25 PM on October 20, 2011