If you enjoy helping support totalitarian dictatorships and friendly puppet governments, then sure, join the CIA. If you want to help make sure drugs get distributed in the US while millions of people rot in jail for non violent drug crimes, then sure, join the CIA. If you want to help put people in jail using "parallel construction", then yeah, sure, join the CIA.
I would suggest reading Phillip Agee. If you believe in America's STATED ideals (which are different from its ACTUAL ideals), you will not want to work for the CIA after reading Agee's first hand accounts. If you still want to work for the CIA after reading Agee I'm not sure how to advise you. I think that's the sort of job where they seek you out and not vice versa. I also think that it's a "family business."
...But if I had to guess what a potential "in" might be, I would say go to an Ivy League university, enroll in Officer Candidate School for the Air Force, take a commission as a second lieutenant in the USAF upon graduating from university, and request to work in intelligence.
If you're okay operating in an organization that can't help but play a Molochian game of necessary evils, then you should consider it.
Otherwise, you're probably going to get burned out by the constant braying of naive idealists that believe foreign policy exists in a vacuum that conscience moves rather than context.
Should? That probably depends on your personality and skill sets. It's nothing like the movies. If a movie motivated you, that would be the wrong reason.
On a side note, many people in the tech industry indirectly work for them. Many are not even aware. There is more money on the civilian side of things anyway. If you are already in the tech industry, look at the businesses funded by In-Q-Tel. [2] That list is not all inclusive. There are thousands of companies missing from the list.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 5.0 ms ] thread...But if I had to guess what a potential "in" might be, I would say go to an Ivy League university, enroll in Officer Candidate School for the Air Force, take a commission as a second lieutenant in the USAF upon graduating from university, and request to work in intelligence.
Otherwise, you're probably going to get burned out by the constant braying of naive idealists that believe foreign policy exists in a vacuum that conscience moves rather than context.
Should? That probably depends on your personality and skill sets. It's nothing like the movies. If a movie motivated you, that would be the wrong reason.
On a side note, many people in the tech industry indirectly work for them. Many are not even aware. There is more money on the civilian side of things anyway. If you are already in the tech industry, look at the businesses funded by In-Q-Tel. [2] That list is not all inclusive. There are thousands of companies missing from the list.
[1] - https://www.cia.gov/careers/application-process
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel