This past week we visited the Democratic and Republican National Committees in Washington, DC. On Mondays, TWC has Leadership Forum activities for students, and I'm part of the Political Leadership Program. This time our programming took us to the political centers of both parties. I expected both to sell us their ideas….the Dems super excited about how they are the “flavor of the month” and the GOP wooing us young interns to their side in search for the support they have been missing for the past 2 election cycles…eh it wasn’t all like that.

At the DNC we were welcomed by Nicole Aro, the DNC’s director of new media, who talked to us about the work they do at the DNC and how important new media like (YouTube, facebook, etc) has become to political parties, candidates and elections and how Twitter was instrumental in getting news out of Iran in the summer.

Some students asked if the administration was collecting all the info they received from the campaign website. She try to dissipate those rumors by explaining how Organizing for America (the successor of Obama for America) is not the Obama administration…although the colors and Obama pictures on the website don’t really help much. I asked if the DNC had any plans to get all those people who volunteered in the last election to once again help the Democrats in a non-election year. She mentioned how it took them months of work to get the incredible amount of volunteers they had last year and that their “Organizing for America” was coming along slow but steady.

We were then off to the RNC. They rolled out the red carpet for us. We were met by Jan Larimer, the RNC Co-Chair. Again we talked about new media, how she believes Obama’s healthcare plan is not good and about their new plans to regain leadership in Congress. We then slipped into two groups; one took a tour of the building (check out the pics) while the other had the opportunity to speak with one of their organizers.

I finished off the evening by going with some of my new friends to Tortilla Coast, a Mexican restaurant across from the RNC building.

Jan Larimer, RNC Co-Chair

My Class
Last time I mentioned how through The Washington Center you have to register for a class. Classes are once a week in the evening from 6:30 to maybe 9-9:30 and the days vary depending of each of the classes. I chose a class called “A Taste of DC”. After we met the first week of class we learned how we would be going around several parts of DC to learn more about the city. We had a quick introduction on how DC is divided and went over the history of how DC ended up as the location for the capital.
Last Wednesday our class took us to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, which is right on Pennsylvania Avenue. From there we walked to Freedom Plaza where we learned more about the history of Pierre L'Enfant, who designed the city. We spent some time at the Willard Hotel (where MLK Jr. spent the night before giving his “I have a Dream Speech”), Lafayette Plaza in front of the White House and we ended early at the Blair House, the official guest house for the President.
Every building, every plaza, every statue has its own story. And as the teacher shared some of those stories with us, I realized how special it was to be in a class where instead of opening a book to look at pictures, we had the opportunity to walk through all that history.

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

Having class at Freedom Plaza

I will leave you with a quick video of my class as we walk through Lafayette Square on Wednesday class.

Bye!

Welcome, Everyone!!!

I want to welcome you to my blog. I am pretty excited to have been selected to share my experiences with you all. I was a big fan of the previous TWC bloggers and I learned a few things that really helped me as I prepared for DC. Once I was admitted to the Political Leadership Program earlier this year I began to wonder about the housing, the internship opportunities, the class I was going take, what kind of work I would have to do for TWC, how to enjoy the city the best way possible, etc. And while The Washington Center does a decent job of letting you know what you will expect once you arrive to DC, it doesn’t hurt to get a perspective of what you’ll expect from a student who is going through those experiences step by step.

I’ll use my blog to share with you my personal experiences while also shining some light onto the different aspects of TWC experience as a whole. I’ll do my best to keep my blog interesting enough for you to come back every week. I try to take my camera with me everywhere I go so you will be seeing pictures and video recordings that hopefully will give you a better idea of what to expect if you think this is something you want to do next semester.

For now let me talk to you about some of events I have attended for TWC. Since I arrived last Wednesday, I’ve taken part of my Political Leadership Program orientation first at the TWC main office in DC, as well as of an orientation/opening for all students at the Carnegie Institute for Science on Friday the 4th. Juan Williams--an author, NPR and FOX News contributor--spoke to us during the opening ceremony. He had some very interesting comments about the kind of changing environment we were witnessing. An environment where now women make up most of the workforce in the United States, and where (according to him) new communication technologies make it a lot harder for different waves of immigrants to completely leave aside their ties with their countries of origin and thus challenging our political leaders to make working policies in this changing America.

I found his comments very interesting; I wish I could say the same about a couple of the questions that were asked to him in the Q&A segment (too much rambling, just ask the question already!!) but in the overall a very nice start to what I hope will be an exciting semester.
I will leave you with a picture I managed to get with Juan Williams as he was leaving and a little video of some of his comments about immigration and healthcare.

TWC Headquarters

Political Leadership Orientation

I have a lot more details on my housing and my internship placement, as well as pictures and videos to share so I hope you’ll be back for my next post. Don’t be shy and post any questions, comments or look me up on facebook if there is something in particular you would like to know.
Until the next time!