Reflections on State Department/Friday Class

The visit to the State Department was a fantastic experience which provided a unique look into one of the smaller desks (Central and South Asia). The desk is responsible for volatile nations that clearly keep the employees engaged and busy at all times. The representatives that spoke with us were very articulate and surprisingly honest considering the current administration is often hesitant to admit to challenges and setbacks in the region. I also enjoyed how the representatives who spoke to us were fairly young and already had done so much with their lives. I personally could see myself in their shoes sometime in the near future, and further solidified my belief that I want to pursue a career in international relations.
Class discussion was thought-provoking. I lack the extensive science fiction knowledge of some of my classmates, but I found the class discussion interesting. We went over every possible scenario for extraterrestrial-human relations and the implications of relationships between figures from other planets. In nearly every single instance there were negative consequences, so I am thankful that aliens have yet to contact humanity. I felt that I had little to contribute outside of a historical citation of how states react to foreign state-of-the-art aircraft. We seemed to come to three conclusions; that the aliens would obliterate mankind, that alien technology would strain relationships between nation-states, or that the aliens would be victimized by humans.
While all these points are valid, we must accept that these wild, theoretical concepts can indeed be applied to how nations react to outsiders and how new technology shapes relationships between countries. We can use these fantastic situations to better understand our world around us and how extreme events impact our lives.