The Secret (Clearance) Life of Students

The Federal Investigator stands there, badge in hand, firing off questions about a student. ‘Were they arrested?  Do they belong to anti-US organizations?’  And other questions, far more personal.  I coolly answer them... not because I've got nerves of steel, but because this is just another routine clearance background check on a recent graduate.  Heck, I do one to four of these a month.  The funniest part of all is my general lack of knowledge on student's private lives.

Ask me if a student got arrested on campus, if I caught them cheating, if they have a good work ethic, yeah, that data I know.  Ask me if they have travelled overseas or if they are married or have kids, and it's a mystery to me. Fortunately, I can speak of student's work habits, professionalism, and whether they set fire to my lab.

We're also good work references, and not just for on-campus lab jobs.  I've interacted with students working at game stores, grocery stores, and of course electronic stores.  I'm not sure who is more surprised to see the other.  After all, while we all know students have lives, it can be a shock to realize professors are (occasionally) allowed to leave campus.  Most say hi, all are polite.  The cleverest one (at the game shop) always reminds me to rate her 5/5 on the company website, because after all, I want our students to succeed, right?

The background check of references, especially for security clearances, is such a standard part of many of our graduating students that Dr. Bill Butler can even tell you what month it is by the number of requests.  He handles up to 10-14 of these interviews a month, likely the most of anyone here.  Then again, Dr. Butler is our Cybersecurity Chair, and says he gets a fair number of unscheduled walk-ins just because he's always around.  He notes there's always an increase as we get closer to May because it's a push to get student summer interns processed in time.

So here's three secrets for students wanting to get their secret clearance.

(1) Don't cheat or plagiarize or violate campus code.  That's an instant strike that we'll know about.

(2) Simply to tell us if you listed us as a reference!  It's not good for anyone for an Investigator to ask us "tell us about this student" and we reply "who?"  It’s crucial to give us some pre-warning and brief us on when you were here so we can check our own records.

We're proud that many of our students seek jobs helping our country that require clearances.  It's a statistic we can't talk about except in broadest terms, and it's a healthy measure of the strength of careers our students go into. 

(3) Oh, that third piece of advice we give students about preparing for secret work?  Sorry, you readers are not cleared for that information.

By Dr. Sandy Antunes