NEWS

High Schoolers Get Glimpse of DIA and the IC

July 3, 2012

One hundred high school students from the National Student Leadership Conference (NSLC) on Intelligence and National Security visited Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) headquarters June 27 to learn more about the intelligence community (IC) and the role DIA plays in it.

The NSLC gives students with an interest in intelligence the opportunity to explore careers fields. Their DIA visit was part of a six-day session where students traveled throughout Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., on academic related field trips to visit departments, agencies and organizations in the IC. DIA Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, Jr., provided students with a brief summary of why DIA was established and described its functions, while also giving students career advice. The director encouraged students to join the government or military after college to give service to our country.

"A good man has got to know his limitations and choose a path that takes advantage of your strengths," said Burgess. It was a piece of advice that stood out to students.

Students were also briefed on programs available at DIA and encouraged to take advantage of any internship, paid or unpaid. A panel of recent hires who were former DIA interns answered questions and provided advice for those looking for a career in intelligence: do an internship every summer, network as much as possible and learn a language.

Past briefers to the NSLC include former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Assistant Director of National Intelligence Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Letitia Long.

DIA is the nation’s premier all-source military intelligence organization.

It provides the nation’s most authoritative assessments of foreign military intentions and capabilities. The agency’s four core competencies -- human intelligence, all-source analysis, counterintelligence and technical intelligence -- enable military operations while also informing policy-makers at the defense and national levels.

DIA’s mission is unique and no other agency matches its military expertise across such a broad range of intelligence disciplines.