“When 9/11 happened, I was just a kid. It was a shocking moment for all of America, making us question who we think we are as a people, what we want to be as a nation, and how other countries perceive us. I didn’t know yet how I would serve, but I knew in that moment I wanted to serve my country. When I was a first-year undergraduate student at @Princeton, I attended a panel @PrincetonSPIA hosted on careers in international relations. An alum who was a foreign service officer described what he did; and I said, ‘Ah! THAT’s what I want to do!’ Even though he wasn’t in the military, he was on the front lines, meeting people from different cultures, trying to understand their countries’ aspirations and where we might have joint interests. I passionately believe that if we’re able to have a true dialogue with other countries, we can reduce conflict. At Princeton, I became deeply interested in the Middle East, and I realized that the U.S. needed more people in service who could speak and understand #Arabic. If we can’t even speak the same #language, how are we going to reach a point of truly understanding each other, respecting each other’s points of view, and coming to agreement on core principles on which to collaborate? I continued to study Arabic at the Foreign Service Institute and then overseas. I’m still humbled by the thought that I have the honor of representing my country all around the world. I’m a public diplomacy officer, and we tend to be the officers at the State Department (@statedept) who work most with #socialmedia and new technologies. We explore how to be better listeners and participants in the conversations students, journalists, and global citizens are having about the U.S. I hope to develop new methods to measure whether our communications are resonating and building bridges with global communities. I want to take back what I’ve learned here to propose new ideas and innovative approaches that can make us even more effective communicators as a department.” – Carissa Gonzalez ’07 MPP ’21 @CarissaGonzalezPhotography.