The VIEW Program
I had my last final exam yesterday and am officially a senior! Whoa! When did that happen? Luckily, I have the whole summer ahead of me before I have to start worrying about everything that senior year entails. Starting in June, I am very excited to be participating in the Vanderbilt Internship Experience in Washington (VIEW) program!
The VIEW program provides students with opportunities to intern in Washington DC across a variety of domains, including policy, culture, nonprofit and communications. This year there are 24 Vanderbilt students participating in the program and we all have unique internship experiences ahead of us. We will be living together in apartments in Virginia (which are supposed to be awesome!), so I am excited to hear about the other participant’s internships!
I will be interning at the Vanderbilt Office of Federal Relations. The Office of Federal Relations advocates for university funding from the federal government. Vanderbilt University currently receives around 400 million in federal research funding! The Office of Federal Relations works to maintain and even expand this amount. I will assist with writing briefs about the research that is currently happening at Vanderbilt. Additionally, I will have the tremendous opportunity to go to Congressional hearings on education funding and report back to the office. Federal research funding for universities is a hotly contested issue right now and I am excited to observe the proceedings up close! I am very interested in education funding and policy so this is the perfect internship for me!
The VIEW program also offers several other unique perks for students. For example, last year, participants got a private tour of the CNN studios and many other unique Washington landmarks. Additionally, we are going to be paired with a mentor who lives in DC and works in the industry that we hope to pursue. This is one of the many great networking opportunities that VIEW provides.
Clearly, VIEW offers a tremendous experience for the other students and me! I am so excited to experience all that Washington DC has to offer during the summer, especially during an election year. I cannot wait to be there in a month! But for now, I am really glad to be able to spend some quality time with my family and friends at home in Chicago!
