New U.S. Work-Study Program Lets Students Learn by Spying

A government agency is offering college students internships for next summer but won’t say exactly what they will be doing or how much they will be paid, and none of what they learn can go on their resumes.

“You cannot talk about what you did here,” CIA spokeswoman Sharon Foster said from the spy agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va.

The CIA for years has had a work-study program for students and summer internships for graduate students. Now, the agency is opening its doors to as many as 30 undergrads who might like to spend eight weeks next summer learning about the daily grind of espionage.

The CIA is looking for students who “can meet challenges with imagination.” In return, the internship promises to polish students’ abilities in “writing, observation, elicitation and clandestine operations.”

Foster could not say precisely what the interns will be doing. “They wouldn’t be writing papers for the President of the United States as undergraduates, or they wouldn’t be out recruiting agents, because they wouldn’t be overseas,” she said.

The CIA has printed materials to advertise the new internships, but a woman answering at the phone number listed on a recruitment poster said she could not talk about them.