<p>Focusing on analytics, there are four big branches to the intelligence community. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>“Hard target” languages (Korean, Arabic, Russian, etc.) </p></li>
<li><p>Math / computer science / engineering </p></li>
<li><p>Area studies. </p></li>
<li><p>Military intelligence </p></li>
</ol>
<p>As an undergraduate, the areas that hire are the first two. For area studies / military intelligence, elite PhD’s and MA’s with considerable work experience are so woefully underutilized by the market that they can snap them up on the cheap (e.g. 65K for a Stanford PhD in Russian history). </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the problem with hard target languages is that they can rarely be learned to the necessary degree of proficiency by a non-native speaker. For tongues like Farsi or Mandarin, even two years of direct immersion leaves you sounding like a bumbling high schooler at best, the village idiot at worst. </p>
<p>So that pretty much leaves the sciences, which UChicago is definitely a target for. I know several UChicago classmates who are now with the National Security Agency in math and cs related capacities. </p>
<p>FYI: the CIA recruits on campus though, including running an afternoon of mock analysis. There hires tend to be a bit more hush-hush about their work. </p>
<p>.</p>