A: The whole process took around 2 years from taking the first test, to starting at the State Department. I literally knew nothing about the Foreign Service and the diplomatic corps until my second year of law school, when the legal market was in the middle of crashing. I did some research online and learned about the Foreign Service Officer Test. I knew it was difficult and selective -- only around 1% of initial test-takers will get an offer. I figured "Oh well, I'm not really going to bother studying then, I'll just take the test and see what happens." Somehow, I passed, and then passed the next stage (a narrative response and resume review). I was invited to take the oral assessment, and realized "Whoa, I might actually do this. I should get serious now." So I joined a study group, took practice exams, and passed with a fairly average score. I was ranked somewhere around 150th out of 270 or so candidates on the list for the Political Officer position (which has historically always been the most difficult). I had to go through a Top Secret security clearance and medical clearance; mine fortunately only took a couple of months, though some people have been waiting for over 18 months for their clearances. I had some great help in the process -- a lot of my initial questions when I was first applying were answered by Sean Smith, who was later killed in the 9/11/12 attacks in Benghazi.

A: In one typical day, I went from briefing members of the intelligence community to meeting with the deputy prime minister of a country, to coffee with the president of a national airline, to dinner with a Somali warlord. I was a Political Officer, but my primary job was as an Economic Officer and the Commercial Attaché, serving as the advisor to my Ambassador on commercial and economic matters. It was tough, because my ambassador was a brilliant career economist, and my economics background consisted of one course in college, and reading "Economics for Dummies" on my flight from the U.S., but learning under pressure is the best way to quickly get a grasp of something. It can be a dangerous job at times -- I had friends at work who were held at gunpoint by soldiers (they lived next door to the top general of the local military, and his guards were a bit jumpy), my colleagues in Abuja narrowly avoided a suicide bombing, and I of course lost my friend Sean in the attacks on the Benghazi mission. On the other hand, I got to visit places few Americans ever will go, enable billions of dollars of U.S. investment overseas, create thousands of jobs, and rub shoulders with the political elite of both the U.S. and foreign governments. It's incredibly rare to find a job that lets you do all of that in your first couple of days at work.

A: Unfortunately, the best parts of the job are often classified. But one highlight was working with Diplomatic Security agents to help shut down an illegal international adoption ring. The perpetrators back in the U.S. were facing a federal indictment, but the orphanage in my country was still operating, with unimaginably bad conditions. It felt good seeing them shut down by the local authorities. Another was getting called on short notice to handle an emergency situation where several U.S. businesses were told that they'd have to shut down their operations due to a new law about to be passed. Not only would it be a huge economic blow to those businesses, but they were express-mail couriers: an industry vital to supporting the entire diplomatic community. I had to negotiate with the minister in charge of communications (equivalent in this case to the U.S. Postmaster General) to get him to reverse this law that was drafted and decided essentially in secret. Within a few days, we were successful and the proposed law was quietly tabled.

Eating cubes of raw camel meat covered in spices and warm butter was pretty fun too. It's an acquired taste.