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U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Daily Life in the mountains



Every day during the course was a little different but some things always remained the same. For instance we usually went to bed when it got cold and dark which was normally around 8:30 or 9:00 pm and everyone got up at 6:00 or 6:30 am every morning (when it was still cold and dark). We would make a hot breakfast and dinner each day using whisperlite camp stoves but lunch was always food on the move – either some type of gorp or trail mix or leftovers from dinner the night before. After breakfast we would have a morning meeting usually with a reading and the schedule for the day and after dinner we would have a final meeting which included a debriefing of the day and a “spotlight.” A spotlight is a 3 minute time slot for each person to talk a little about their life and then there would be 5 minutes for questions from the group. Listening to each person talk about their life was one of my favorite parts of the trip.


Other than that routine, each day varied quite a bit. Sometimes we would have one or two morning classes before we started hiking. Or we would get on the trail very early and have one or two classes in the evening. Some days the hikes were short and easy (4-5 miles) and other days they were long (8-10 miles). Certain days we gained thousands of feet of elevation which was pretty strenuous and other days we were off trail and bushwacking and navigating on our own for hours. We usually hiked in groups of three or four with an instructor for each group. One of the coolest parts of NOLS is the constant learning. While hiking, if the instructor saw something interesting (animals, plants, geologic formation etc.) we would always stop and have a little mini-class right there on the spot. Similarly, we were always practicing the skills we were learning like topographic map reading and navigation, using a compass to take and shoot a bearing and the principles of Leave No Trace.



The formal group classes during our course ran the gamut from backcountry cooking to leadership principles. Some other topics were: fly fishing, backcountry baking, giving and receiving feedback, wilderness emergency medicine and first aid, identifying trees and plant life zones, yoga, river crossing, positive impact camping, NOLS history, leadership and learning styles, hazards in the wilderness, risk management, a myriad of knot tying classes, Leave No Trace backpacking and all the different skills that go into rock climbing. We were very, very busy during the day and there was hardly ever any down time and no days off.

In addition to listening to many formal classes given by the instructors, each of us had to prepare and teach our own class. Since it was an outdoor educator course they wanted us to have some experience teaching to a group. I volunteered to go first and taught a class on “How to teach a class.” I went through some basic ideas on how to make a lesson pl an and how to get the students involved and active in a class. We played a few games which were a big hit and I was very happy to have my class over and done with.



NOLS is very into giving and getting feedback so each of us were assigned to one of the instructors who became our mentor. Each week I sat down with Adam and talked about how the course was going. He gave me some feedback on how I was doing and how I could improve (be more assertive, get in better shape, be more confident etc.) and I gave some opinions on what I liked about the course and how it could be improved (have more female instructors). At times NOLS felt a bit like boot camp; there were high expectations and it was physically and mentally stressful. But it never had an emotional or therapeutic intent or focus which was interesting. The running joke was that "we would not be doing any group hugs or things of that nature since we were not ‘Outward Bound’ (the main competitor of NOLS)”. I, for one, was actually very appreciative when some students were emotionally vulnerable in front of everyone because of the intensity of the situation, so we shared our hugs in private.

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    Sarah Sanderson
    I am currently in Mandarin language training as a new diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean and I depart for Wuhan, China in November 2019 for my first tour in consular affairs.
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    Grateful for my very tolerant, supportive and easygoing husband who's always game for a new adventure

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