Last Tuesday – after the Labor Day holiday – over 650 shiny new students with language-designated onward positions arrived at the Foreign Service Institute to begin language training. I was one of them.
The first day of long-term language training at FSI is always reserved for orientation, and last Tuesday was no exception. Students gathered in the morning in the B building for a pep talk from FSI leadership followed by a brief Q&A. The orientation was so packed, dozens of people were standing along the walls of the admittedly large auditorium.
I strategically arrived to orientation at the last minute. Not to be too cool for school, as it were, but because I underestimated the insanity of first-day traffic. I am also pretty eccentric about my cars and have a propensity for parking in hell-and-gone to avoid door dings. I’d attended the same orientation ahead of studying Russian in 2014 and Spanish in 2019, but procedures and testing evolve and I didn’t want to miss anything.
When I hastily walked in and encountered the shocking amount of colleagues packed into one room, I decided to socially distance (i.e. lean against the wall by a side exit) rather than trip over people and their bags to reach the odd open seat halfway down a row.
After the plenary session, everyone broke off and headed to various rooms for their language division-specific orientations. Mine was in the F building, where most language classes are still held. Students for Burmese and Vietnamese gathered in the same room – there were just under two dozen of us. It was fun to see three people I’d previously served with in Australia and Mexico, although they were all going to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City vs. Rangoon.
The language training supervisor for the Burmese and Vietnamese language branch gave us a talk about various administrative procedures in the division, including how to request leave and how our weekly schedules would be arranged. She included a pep talk about the mental journey of undergoing language training. The below picture from her PowerPoint really resonated with me – so much so that I later Googled it.
Why is this picture so spot-on?
Language training is a humbling experience. FSOs – like any capable professionals – are used to being good at our jobs and knowing what we’re doing. Yes, going to a new post and starting from the bottom with a job you’ve never done can be humbling too.
But during language training, you’re booted all the way back to kindergarten. You start with learning the alphabet and basic phrases. You essentially lose the ability to use everyday language to be persuasive, to sound intelligent, to influence others. When you look down the road at the End of Training Test and an intermediate fluency goal, it can be overwhelming to consider the endeavor before you.
You have to believe in yourself, surrender a significant chunk of your ego, and be willing to make mistakes and look silly over and over again – including in front of your potential boss or subordinates if you’re in a small section.
What you will receive in return is worth it: a bigger fishbowl to swim around in. You will outgrow the place where you are and take a leap of faith to the next place that will someday be familiar enough to call home. That’s what I’m counting on.
Collecting Postcards 
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