It’s been a few months since I was accepted to TWC but it was only until this week that I finally made my decision on where to work as an intern during this upcoming fall. Let me use this opportunity to share a little of what went on before making my decision to intern with Chwat & Company, Inc.
As a political science undergraduate student I was very excited to be admitted to the Political Leadership Program at TWC. But once the period of telling my family and friends about this exciting news ended, I began to worry about which DC offices or companies would want to have me as an intern. My goal was an internship in an office that concentrated in government relations with the U.S. Congress, and to be honest I knew that my experience in local and state government would be one of my resume strengths, but I also knew that the students admitted to TWC had just as much or perhaps even more experience than I did.
Before I had my first phone interview, I asked one of my friends to help me by having a mock phone interview with me. He would record it and then we would listen to the interview to find out whether I was speaking too fast or if I needed to be louder for the real deal. I had some experience in phone interviews since I had taken part in a university search committee for our Dean of Students where we had to phone interview several candidates. Based on that experience, I felt more comfortable about how the interviews would be. Among the things I learned was to use a home phone line rather than a cell phone because it was more likely that the signal could be lost during the interview if I used a cell phone.
Once the first e-mails from offices interested in me reached my inbox, I began doing some research on those companies’ websites and their work. I also contacted my advisor Nick, who gave me an idea of the sort of work I would be doing in some of those offices based on previous intern’s experiences. He explained to me which companies would have me doing more administrative work (filing, making copies, doing statistics, etc) than anything else, and which ones would really be better in providing a more hands-on experience for me. I would recommend that you maintain constant communication with your TWC advisor and find answers to any questions you have about your internship. If he or she doesn’t know, he or she will direct you to someone who knows at TWC.
During my interviews I was able to talk about my experience in state and local government as well as my university involvement with confidence. I found it very helpful to always have in front of me copies of the documents I sent to TWC such as my resume, essays, etc. Some of the interviews lasted a little more than half and hour, while some no more than twenty minutes. And in some of the interviews the current intern or interns were present which allowed me to ask them about the kind of work they had done as interns in their respective positions.
Finally, after a final consultation with my advisor, I decided to accept the offer by the government relations firm of Chwat & Company, Inc., coincidentally on the day of the Sonia Sotomayor Senate confirmation. As a first generation Hispanic college student involved in politics and government I enjoyed that day twice as much and it reminded me of how thanks to my hard work and dedication I was about to embark in my own new challenge in Washington.
