“I think sometimes we take for granted the experiences we can get in America,” Maye-gan Brown ‘20, said as she made herself dinner in her apartment in Washington D.C.
Brown is one of five students currently spending their fall interning and taking classes with the Lutheran College Washington Semester (LCWS). In light of recent protests in Washington and the upcoming midterm elections it seemed like a good time to talk to some of these students about their life in D.C.
“Instead of going abroad I wanted to know what life would be like just in a different city,” Brown explained about her decision to come to D.C.,“because there’s an entirely different culture here than it is in Philly, where I live, so I think it was important for me to just get out of what I knew to be familiar.”
“I love Washington D.C. and I’m flirting with the idea of working for the federal government after I graduate, so it seemed like a good opportunity,” Ali Watson ‘20, said on her choice. “I think culturally and just speaking generally there’s just a lot more going on. Even if you’re not interested in politics there’s still a lot to do and see in D.C. both culturally and professionally.”
For Ariana Lopez ‘20, the political aspects of D.C. weren’t really a factor. “Especially if you’re a dance or theater major there’s this pressure, if you want to go abroad you have to go to Arezzo and I was looking for something a little bit different because I wasn’t really interested in going ‘abroad’ abroad but I still wanted an off-campus experience.”
Lopez learned about LCWS through her work on campus with the Global Education Office. “Dr. Kish-Goodling raves about LCWS and she told me that it’s not just for poli sci majors or econ majors, there’s more than just politics in D.C.”
Proving that D.C. does not revolve completely around politics, Lopez is currently interning with Dance/USA, which she explained is “a national service organization for professional dance.” They provide resources for dance groups and individuals such as research, advocacy and preservation. Lopez is a programs intern and spends her days helping to organize the annual conference that Dance/USA will be hosting next summer.
However, for a lot of people who work in D.C. politics is their focus. “Government-wise, this is where it happens,” said Watson. Brown and Watson are both working as interns on Capitol Hill, with Brown in the House with Congressman Dwight Evans of Pennsylvania and Watson in the Senate with Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington.
While not the only intern in the senator’s office, Watson is the only press intern. “I work with what is called Press Clips … when you see that highlight reel on tv, or where ever, that was probably compiled by an intern or a low level staffer. So Press Clips is basically a memo that is sent out to the office and to the senator to basically say ‘here’s where the senator’s been mentioned.’”
“As an intern I answer phones, attend briefings, hearings, write-up memos, do Capitol tours if necessary,” Brown explained, showing the look she gets of the day-to-day operations of the federal government. “This was actually a very eye-opening experience for me, I realized that I do want to politics but if I do politics I’ll do it more on a local level.”
“I work where everything’s happening but it’s almost as if nothing touches us,” Brown said of the recent protests in response to the Kavanaugh hearings and confirmation. “Because I work on the House side and everything has been happening on the Senate side it just feels like I’m watching it on tv like everyone else.” Brown did say that with the midterm elections she thinks that the protests might increase. “People are at a point where they’re tired and I think the difference between this administration compared to others is this administration has pretty much attacked every single group of people… So I definitely think people are going to be putting more pressure on their representatives and their senators to represent them truly.”
“My first day of work in the Hart Building was also the day of the mass of protestors of the Kavanaugh hearing,” Watson said. “In a time of extreme polarization there’s no way that couldn’t effect day-to-day life, even just on small scales like being an intern… It’s my understanding by what I’ve been told and what I experienced that it’s a different time than what it was a few years ago, even just a couple years ago.”
“I remember always joking about meteorologists and saying that they’re always throwing a dart on a dartboard blindfolded and that was whatever the weather was and that’s kind of what it feels like where we are now with the polls,” Watson said in reference to the upcoming midterm elections. “Come November I don’t think there’s going to be as drastic of a change as the left is calling for but I also think that there’s definitely a feeling of being unsettled that I don’t think that the right has fully grasped.”
Lopez said that even those who work outside the government aren’t immune to everything that has been happening lately in the political sphere. “Even though we’re a non-profit dance organization… D.C. is such a political town, whatever you do is just going to end up seeping its way through the work you do.”
“This is going to be a really contentious election,” Lopez said of Tuesday’s midterms. “There’s a lot of potential for change and if you don’t vote you can’t complain. That’s all I can say.”
“Go out and vote,” Watson said. “My advice threefold is: vote, vote, vote. I think that if you have any interest at all, not just in politics, but just the ways in which you interact with your government that you may not even think about… I think that this administration, with all of the attention and scrutiny, has made us closely examine how our government is theoretically supposed to operate versus how it actually does on a daily basis and if you have any thoughts or opinions on how it’s been going or how it’s supposed to go, now really is a turning point. And I know that sounds melodramatic or very threatening but it really is a vote for this administration or not for this administration no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, I don’t really want to buy into this whole notion that America is too polarized but in fairness we kind of are. I think that we can’t really do anything next until we see what happens in November.”
“You not getting out to vote is someone saying ‘ok, you don’t want to vote, I’m choosing for you’ because whether you vote or not you’re technically voting,” Brown said as a final piece of advice.
