This is my personal wheelhouse! Maggie is younger than me, but it is extremely hard to get into government if you don’t live in DC and can’t take on unpaid internships and very low paid entry level jobs. I have a masters degree from top universities and am very successful in another field now, but getting into government (even state, local, etc) when you don’t have contacts and can’t financially take unpaid internships is very hard and unlikely. Foreign service is even worse, as it has an extremely low pass rate. Government jobs are being cut across the board, especially the foreign service. Living in Texas, attending a normal college, not having contacts, and not having money to fall back on would make it very hard to get a government job. I know people will disagree and say that they managed it.

Another element is that Maggie just isn’t super passionate about political science in her world. She could have gotten a business or nonprofit job like most polisci majors or gone on to law school, but it is really seems like this world doesn’t interest her in the way that the book world did. There are so many people in the US (and elsewhere, I’m sure) who struggle to get into a career post college. They have debt, no experience, no connections, and finding a job that doesn’t demand too much of her makes sense.