Qualifications
If you want a job in international aid work, you'd best prepare yourself. You've got a lot of work to do.
Let's start with college. You're going to need a bachelor's degree, but in what? You need to think carefully about the cause or causes you're passionate about, as well as the parts of the world you want to work in, before choosing a major.
Many people interested in international aid opt for degrees in the liberal arts or social sciences—note the descriptor "many."While you can certainly acquire a well-rounded education by studying the humanities, you can get a leg up on becoming an international aid worker by picking up practical skills in college (source). For example:
- Consider pursuing a degree, or at least taking a few classes, in fields like nursing, engineering, or finance. Aid organizations need people who can build bridges, not explain Chaucer.
- Learn a foreign language. You can opt for one of the major languages—like Spanish, French, Mandarin, or Arabic—or a dialect specific to the area of the world you want to work in.
- Take a class or two dealing with a specific world region or culture. If you want to help children in Latin America, you should know something about the countries where you might be stationed.
You should also use your college years to acquire valuable experience via internships or paid work. Perhaps your university has a student-run microloan program that decamps to Peru during the summer. Maybe your church makes semiannual runs to Mexico to dispense free medical services. You might even be able to get an internship abroad with one of the big boys like the United Nations.
But if going overseas just isn't practical for you, don't freak out. There are other ways you can gain relevant experience for international aid work at home. For example, many American cities have refugee populations, and you can look for work with an organization that provides medical services, housing, career assistance, and educational assistance to these groups.
So, you're done with college. You have some volunteer experience. Now what?
Well, we hate to break it to you, but chances are good that you're going to need a graduate degree to land an international aid job abroad. There are a variety of degrees you could pursue, depending on where your interests lie. Folks who want to do technical work for aid organizations (for example, as doctors) are going to require advanced technical degrees. If you're looking for a non-technical job, then consider these fields of study:
- Area studies
- Conflict resolution
- Human rights
- International development
- Public administration
- Public health
There are a million people getting degrees in these fields for the specific purpose of becoming international aid workers, so you're going to need to back your graduate studies up with a stellar internship (or two). It's even better if you can get a gig with in-depth fieldwork.
Some graduate programs will have exactly what you're looking for in-house, like a three-month student-led eHealth initiative in Mumbai. It's more likely, however, that you'll need to put a lot of time and effort into finding a field internship with the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the American Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee, and so on.
These internships are extremely competitive—some might argue landing one of these is harder than actually getting into graduate school. But, with one of these internships under your belt, you'll have an exponentially higher chance of landing a job in the field post-graduation.