The Internship

From my past few entries, you might think I’m on a vacation—sightseeing, attending galas, frolicking around D.C., etc. But I don’t want to mislead you. My schedule is anything but lax, and today I’ll highlight my work at my internship.

I chose to intern with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration for two reasons: The first was to get a taste of public service or government work. The second reason was to further my writing skills in the Commercial Service’s Office of Communication and Marketing. Before I accepted the offer, my supervisor assured me I’d actually be writing—not answering phones, making copies and opening mail. He’s kept his promise, and with my choice I’ve been content.

A typical day:

I leave for the Metro at about 8:10 a.m. each day and return around 6 p.m. The bulk of my work is writing press releases for new embassy or office openings, announcing important events, or featuring companies and new contracts between American businesses and foreign firms. I’ve written about eight press releases used at U.S. embassies abroad including the countries Oman, Brunei, Libya, Cyprus and Nicaragua. The press releases are sent to the State Department, checked for any factual errors (hopefully none), translated into the desire country’s language, then shipped to our embassies and sent to the nation’s media. Consequently, I can’t read a single word of the final product’s translated pages.

My supervisor also has me writing success stories for businesses that have exported, witnessed a great increase in annual sales, hired more employees and therefore contributed to the local economy.

Last Thursday I worked with a specialty vehicle, manufacturing company in Ontario, Calif., writing a press release on a recent bloodmobile sale to Qatar. Upon getting the story and learning of the company’s great success, my simple press release draft turned into a two-day event honoring the firm. The city mayor agreed to highlight the new company’s simultaneous contributions to California’s economy and Qatar’s healthcare. I finished the release on the company, its latest sale, local employee growth and even wrote the speech the mayor used to present the award (speechwriting is a first for me!). Now the Secretary of Commerce is considering presenting a Department award to the same company.

My internship has been great. But since my tasks focus on international business, veering from my personal focus on international affairs and diplomacy, I’ve been using my out-of-class time to absorb the international political arena. I attend events, sit in on committee meetings and listen to speakers at least once a week.

So far I’ve heard Senator John Kerry (yes, former presidential candidate) grill newly appointed ambassadors to Turkey and Libya in a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing; I’ve listened to five Pakistani journalists tell their stories about the challenges of reporting amongst death threats, religious extremism and a strict, regulatory government; I’ve listened to one political analyst’s thesis on Romanian minority language suppression; and I’ve attended two debates regarding the future of U.S.-Iraqi occupation.

Beside the events, Monday programming with The Washington Center has also enriched my knowledge in international affairs. For example: Last week, the Ford Fellow interns and I had breakfast with the Brazilian ambassador to the U.S. He talked about his country’s success and future challenges in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and answered any questions we had regarding Brazilian policy.

The Brazillian Ambassador to the U.S. ... and the Ford Girls

Each Monday members of the Ford Program hear lectures represent the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, environmental stability activists or Africa’s development. We’ve also visited non-profits such as Bread for the World, headquartered in D.C. James Clyburn, House majority whip, motivated us last Monday to find our “nook” in the world, focus our passions and make a difference.

I feel like I’ve had a little piece of everything, yet there is still so much to do. I’ll cover more next week.