USF to offer intelligence analyst training

You see them on TV in shows like "24'' and in movies like "The Hurt Locker" — intelligence analysts sifting through information, trying to connect the dots to foil a devious plot.

Starting in November, you can learn what real intelligence analysts do — and how to become one — at the University of South Florida.

Thanks to a two-year, $720,000 grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, USF is launching a program to prepare college and high school students for entry-level positions in the intelligence community as well as for analysis-related jobs in the private sector.

Both require the same basic skills, says the program's director, Walter E. Andrusyszyn, a USF adjunct professor of international business.

"We will be training the next generation of intelligence analysts with this grant," Andrusyszyn said. "The skills needed by top-notch CIA analysts are the same as those needed for risk analysts in banking or for forecasters in other industries. We want USF to become a training ground for a new generation of professionals with superb analytical and communications skills."

Andrusyszyn is a former director for Northern and Eastern European Affairs for the National Security Council.

In addition to knowing how to sift through information, an analyst must be adept at oral and written presentation, Andrusyszyn said.

"We will put the focus on presentation skills, orally and writing," he said. "One of the biggest complaints from the intelligence community is that people don't write well."

The USF intelligence career program will have two components, Andrusyszyn said.

There will be workshops and seminars on campus as well as internships, with the possibility of overseas travel to embassies and military installations. The majority of the funding is for the overseas program, he said.

Andrusyszyn said he anticipates about 200 students will enroll in the program, with about 20 to 30 receiving internships.

Andrusyszyn said he anticipates that students from many disciplines will apply.

One of the assignments, he said, will be to analyze why the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11.

"If you are an engineering student, you will look at it from an engineering perspective," he said. "If you are a political science student, you will look toward al-Qaida."

The point, he said, is to teach people to see things from other perspectives.

In addition to the military and State Department, Andrusyszyn said he also hopes to place students with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, where Sheriff Chris Nocco is pushing intelligence-based policing.

Along with the intelligence program, USF is developing an undergraduate course that will focus on the Middle East, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an emphasis on how the intelligence community addressed conflict-related issues and terrorism in the past.

College students are the primary focus of the grant, but Andrusyszyn said he wants to bring area high school students into the program as well.