Consular Fellow of the US Foreign Services

An interest for International Relations + a fascination for the Nordic culture = PECOS at UiO

Angelica Estevez (Angie), originally from Newport, Rhode Island in the United States, did her undergraduate in International Relations at Karlshochschule International University in Germany. She was first introduced to the Nordic culture through an exchange visit to Sweden.

- My time at Karlshochschule allowed me to study and work in Sweden at Linnaeus University (Linn¨¦universitetet). I was introduced to the Nordic culture, and I really loved it. After I graduated, I joined the Peace Corps and volunteered in the Dominican Republic where I taught Spanish literacy skills on the border of Haiti for about a year.

After the year with the Peace Corps Angie moved to Washington D.C. There she joined a small non-profit that worked on trying to connect business leaders from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula to teach them about philanthropic values. Through her work with at Distinguished Fellow from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, whom she has continued to work with for the last four years, she learned a lot about autocracies and the backsliding of democratization.

- This experience made me more interested in focusing on peace and conflict studies. Looking for potential study programs I first Googled international relations programs anywhere in the world. The Peace and Conflict studies program at UiO (PECOS) was highlighted on many sites, it seemed like the best program, and it seemed like it would set me up for so many opportunities in peace research. Since I'd already had my eye on Scandinavia, I applied, hoping I would get in. I heard it was 8-900 applicants, and only about 20 who got in, so I was very honoured when I was accepted.

Student activities and welcoming Norwegians

Angie describes her time in Oslo as wonderful, a time filled with memories for life.

- I'm so grateful that I made the decision to study in Oslo, as my time here has been incredible. PECOS has brought me so many wonderful developments, friends, and memories. I am rather an active person - I love sailing and running and I was so happy that I was able to keep those up while being here. Something that I really enjoyed about UIO that I didn't have in my undergraduate experience is that there's a lot of programs, extracurriculars that one can join. I joined the rowing club for a short while and there's all these fairs and the way that SiO (Studentsamskipnaden) is involved is just amazing. There are so many opportunities to get involved if you want to.

The Norwegian culture is, according to Angie, just phenomenal, and she has yet to meet someone who fits the (perhaps outdated) stereotype of ¡°cold¡± and unwelcoming. 

- If that stereotype is valid, then Norwegians in PECOS are the exception to the rule, at least that has been my experience. I have been delighted to have many Norwegian friends, and I feel like everyone has been super friendly, super interested. As soon as they hear I'm from the States, they want to know more. I love how the people I've met have been so curious. Even those who aren't studying at UIO but maybe are studying in other places or maybe aren't studying at all. Oslo is a diverse city and Norway a diverse country. I've really enjoyed my experience here!

The student environment at PECOS has since the beginning of the program been known to be inclusive and tight, and Angie¡¯s cohort is no exception.

- Everyone is friends, helps each other and is very supportive. We are always involved doing things together on the weekends. We¡¯ve all contributed, but I must give a big shout out to Ina, our class president: She's always organizing things and always making sure everyone is supported and checking in on us. 

Approximately one third of the class are international students, with classmates from USA, Mexico, Georgia, and Italy. Angie has appreciated having fellow Americans in the program - especially around holidays.

- Thanksgiving is such an important holiday for Americans. And July 4^th! What I really enjoy is that we all have different perspectives from where we come from and from our backgrounds and what we've lived before we came to PECOS. And I enjoy that we're able to share those different ideologies and perspectives within PECOS. We can all give our different takes on it. And it just shows that the US is more than one thing - we're only three representatives of a country of 350 million people.

While in Oslo, in addition to being a member of the PECOS Student Council, Angie did an internship with the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

- I was a communications intern with PRIO as part of the course PECOS4006 the fall of 2022. That was a really great opportunity! I'd already worked with different non-profits like an NGO in northern Germany where I was helping refugees integrate into the local community. I had an idea of what a peace research institute would work on, but PRIO was just so invigorating to work in, and I enjoyed all my tasks in the communications department and from assisting with the events. I learned so much about the different departments and everything was so relevant. The work culture was inclusive, and it felt like a flat hierarchy, and that's something I hadn't experienced in my time in Germany or in my time in the US. There it's very notable who you can speak to and not. That just wasn't the case at PRIO, both me and the PECOS-UiO students were so integrated. Just the fact that you have budding peace researchers, they're able to be involved in real work and real projects and see how it's developing, and they can see if that's what they want to do. I think that was an incredible initiative that PRIO has that MA student program.

Gun violence in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic

In her master's thesis, Angie focused on firearm and gun violence in the United States, and especially the increase one could detect under the COVID-19 years. Supervised by Scott Gates at UiO and Nicholas Marsh at PRIO, she investigated if actions taken by the government, like such as state mandates that further isolated people, had any effect on or correlated at all to the increase in firearm violence.

- This topic interests me so much given the crisis level, that we in my opinion, have in the United States. I have always been curious about it, and while I was doing preliminary research, I learned that during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have the highest incidents of gun violence and firearm incidents and firearm fatalities ever recorded. This made me ask: Why was that in a time when we were in isolation at home - not being outside? I¡¯ve always perceived more danger outside of the home, for example at the supermarket or at a concert venue or in the metro. That is the way the news portrays it, so it was a puzzle to me. I had control variables I looked at, such as poverty, alcohol consumption, and firearm interests interacting with existing strength of firearm legislation in states. I made aggregated models and disaggregated models. It was a quantitative paper if I hadn¡¯t already said that ¨C hehe.

Angie learned a lot from working on her thesis, and an incident that happened the day before she was submitting shows the relevance of the topic.

- The day before I was submitting my thesis, I was meeting with my replacement for my job in the US that I was training. I've been training her over Zoom, but this day she was delayed. When I was writing to her to find out why, she said that there was an active shooter in the building, so she was in lockdown. We connected the next day, and she was fine. But the way she was also like nonplussed. I don't know if that's the right word, but she was like, ¡°Oh, yeah, it happened¡±. It made me remember being back in the States, speaking to friends about all the different shootings that were happening and being like, ¡°How are you not in fear every single day?¡±  I guess the answer is that since it happens every single day, and at some point, you get used to it.

One of the clearest conclusions of the thesis was that so long as poverty is present, firearm violence will exist.

- And then there's still more research to be done on causation, but regarding correlation, it does seem that the presence of poverty correlates to an increase in firearm gun violence and fatalities from gun violence. Before the mandates were enacted and after, so irrespective of the COVID-19 mandates, but alcohol consumption and firearm interests did increase after the COVID-19 mandates were enacted.

- Gun violence affects so many people much more than it's reported in the news or than we think of. Just because someone didn't die doesn't mean that their life wasn't affected. And even if they weren't injured, what that does on your psyche to have been in a situation where there was a shooting and you survived that trauma, there's a lot of unseen traumas. And it's a real shame. My personal hope is that that something changes sooner rather than later.

Being of help to fellow Americans

After a lengthy application process, which includes several tries and an extremely thorough clearance routine, Angie is soon joining the Department of State (US Foreign Services) as a consular fellow. Where she¡¯s going, and exactly what she will be doing is undecided for now.

- I¡¯ve applied each year since I was 21, and when I finally got through the needle eye, I had to document all sorts of things, in a very specific way. I know I¡¯ll be working in the consular section, but that¡¯s about it at the moment. The way that it works in the US is a bit different than it does abroad. In the US, when you're working in an embassy, there's five tracks. I understand that in Norway, you're trained for all positions in the embassy, and you're filling in where you are needed, where the demand is. But in the US, you specify within your preference. There's a political track, economic track, public diplomacy track, management track and consular track. In the consular track I hope to be helping with American Citizen Services.

- For example, in the case of Brittney Griner, who was up until recently incarcerated in Russian jail, it was consular officers that visited her to make sure she was okay. She was taken care of, and they were making sure she had communication with her family back home. So that's something that I would be doing with local Americans wherever I'm posted.

Another prospect is that Angie could be working with immigration, similar to what Utlendingsdirektoratet (UDI) does domestically in Norway, only she will be doing interviews abroad. She could be working with Americans who are born abroad, helping them with getting their birth certificates or passports, people who have gotten married, or Americans who dies abroad.

- You're a part of someone's life at beautiful moments and very sad moments. When someone dies abroad, the consular section is responsible for repatriating their body back home to their family and getting in touch with the family to inform them of the passing of a family member.

- There's also a possibility I'll be in the section dealing with trafficking of goods. There's merchandise that is made abroad and then is tried to be imported into the US illegally. Working with ports, if I'm located at a port post, then that might be my responsibility as well. I don't know where in this range of responsibilities I'll be, but I'm excited. I've always wanted to join the Department of State and I¡¯m ready to go were I¡¯m needed.

Angie¡¯s family are originally from the Dominican Republic, and as a first generation American she recognized from a very young age the privilege she had just of being born where she was.

- None of us choose where we are born, but it really sets us up for so many opportunities based on it. I¡¯ve always wanted to help others to have the opportunity to work and live in the United States if that's what they would like to do. And unite families. And it's especially important to me that I'll be able to represent the United States as I was someone who learned English when I was six or seven. While abroad, when people would ask me ¡°Where are you from?¡± And I'd say, ¡°United States¡±. They'd sometimes say, ¡°No, no, where are you really from¡±? This gives me an opportunity where I can truly say, ¡°I am representing the United States. I am a diplomat, I'm in charge of American interests and I want to further American relations¡±.

It's an understatement that Angie is looking forward to this opportunity, and she will soon go to Washington D.C. to start the training before she¡¯ll know where she¡¯s posted. And that could be anywhere.

- Yes, that could be anywhere in the world! Although I'm going for the Spanish track, I could get placed in India, Jamaica, Pakistan, Nigeria, Philippines ¨C and I am happy to go wherever. If I could choose though, I would love Mexico or northern South America. I know that there's a lot of need right now for people who are trying to emigrate to the US. And I would really love to support with the backlog. There's just so many changes every single day to immigration law in the US, and I would really love to support and get a better understanding myself of the different cases that are happening. So, yeah, I guess Mexico would be my preferred choice.

Be open, curious and the best version of yourself!

With the time and effort it takes to become a fellow with the US Foreign Services, it seems like Angie¡¯s different experience, openness to develop and try new things helped her reach her goal. The combination of choice of studies, volunteering with the Peace Corps and having a parttime job all in some way contributed to what Angie herself sees as the most important thing.

- What I'm going to say, I don't think is said often enough. I don't believe that a title or just one thing got me where I am. I think the key is the character development and the development I¡¯ve experienced from working with others. This is something that you can achieve without having left the country. By working with different people and learning to compromise, learning to negotiate, learning leadership skills, learning how to reflect. You just need to work on yourself, I guess. And that's a constant thing. It's a dynamic thing, never static.

Through the different courses in PECOS Angie has learned skills that will come in handy in her new job.

- I think one of the most important skills I learned is to have an open mind, being thorough and be able to adapt. Don't go into anything with the notion that your own ideas are the only ¡°correct¡± ones. Let people tell you what they need from you and then adapt. I learned that in the first course with ?ivind Bratberg on research methods when he discussed ethical considerations, especially when choosing a research topic. It's great to have an idea or a field that you want to look at. But do the readings, learn the background, learn the context and the questions will come to you. That¡¯s sort of how I¡¯m going into this job opportunity: I'm going with an open mind and going to see what the department needs, and from there do my best to reach those goals and meet those demands.

Angie has described different possibilities to what type of responsibilities she might have in her job, and this is how she imagines a typical day at work one year from now:

- My best guess is that I will start the day doing interviews for people who are requesting assistance from the US government in some way. And that will be my morning before a lunch break. In the afternoon, there's time set aside for specialized cases that require more time and consideration before a decision is made. Or I would work on a project, maybe on trafficking cases, and I¡¯d go out to the field and visit the ports and look at the inventory. But I understand that every day is a bit different, but for the most part, it would follow, especially the first couple of years, the first couple of tours before I get to a more senior position. And then I possibly, hopefully, maybe who knows, a more different supervisor role, helping younger officers.

When I ask Angie where she sees herself in 15 to 20 years, she¡¯s not sure, but is ready to do what¡¯s needed. Her biggest challenge will probably be to leave work at work.

- My journey can go many places, whether that's abroad in the embassy or domestically working at a policy desk of a specific department. I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes me. I think what I will have to work most on is making sure to leave work at the office. Stop thinking of the cases once the decisions are made and begin with the next case. My goal is that I eventually will be sure that I've done everything I could before I decide on a certain outcome. 

Angies¡¯ tips for people coming to study in Norway:

- I really recommend you take the opportunity to learn about the people and their culture, the language, and the history. Do it year around, don't wait until the last two months and don't do it around special holidays. I've found that the best way to make friends is to ask them ¡°Where do you come from?¡± ¡°What's your history?¡± ¡°What brought you here?¡± Do that every day with your fellow classmates! I would also recommend that you learn the language. I've benefited from the language department here and I'm studying Norwegian and it's really giving me a better understanding. I mean, of course, it's so nice that the English here is perfect - it's almost as if I'm still in the States. But you learn more about a people with the jokes that they make, and they make that so much more relaxed and comfortably in their own language. So just take advantage of the culture and people here and the best way to do that is to learn the language.