From March 27-June 7 I am participating in the UC Washington Center Program, which consists of a full time internship at a place of my choice as well as weekly seminars and optional elective courses. At the end of my time here, I will turn in a 20 page research paper based on my experience. I am also taking a course called Campaigns and Elections, taught by the UC Washington Program director, Bruce Cain, and Laura Capps--the daughter of our Santa Barbara Congresswoman representative, Lois Capps. We just had our first session on Tuesday and had Mike Allen, a major journalist who writes the Playbook column (which is a really short, useful news update that comes out every morning and what he calls "part of a good breakfast") ) for Politico, come speak to our class. With everything combined I will get 12 units towards my political science major requirements, which is great because it doesn't put me off track at all for graduating on time.
I am interning at a broadcasting network called Talk Radio News Service, which gathers news from around Washington and delivers live drop-ins to talk radio shows all over the country. They also upload news stories and other information to their website. As interns, we actually have a lot of substantial work to do which is not characteristic of most internships around here. We have full access press credentials and spend our days attending various events on and off the Hill, such as Congressional hearings, discussion panels, research summits, protests, and anything else that is newsworthy. We take live audio recordings of the events, then bring our equipment back to one of the company's 6 offices around the city and send out "talking points" (summaries, quotes, and important highlights) to our staff members so they can discuss these events on the radio. We are also responsible for uploading these points and soundbytes to the company website. All in all, it is very fast-paced and often stressful, but really exciting to be able to participate in and report on the events that shape our country. I am learning a lot and loving every minute of it, but of course can't wait to get back to Santa Barbara for summer-- when I walked home today it was 39 degrees and raining.
Every day I take the metro to and from work, which is really convenient and easy to use. After a week or so I finally feel comfortable making my way around the city. It's basically divided into 4 sectors with the Capitol at the center, so there is a NW, NE, SW, and SE section. I live in the NW section, by Dupont Circle and the White House, and can base my sense of direction off that.
All of us in the program live in the UC Center which is a great place and really centrally located. We are within walking distance to pretty much any store we need to go to, plus all the night life and the National Mall which has all the monuments and memorials. The center is 11 stories of apartments, occupied by all UC students or staff, and we all share apartments with 4 people (2 to a room). All our roommates are really cool and get along really well. Three of us are from UCSB (with one exchange student from Korea) and one UCLA student (Caitlyn, who I'm rooming with). We live on the 10th floor and have an really nice view of Scott Circle, which is named after someone apparently famous.
We spent the first few days here just settling in and exploring the city. Last week was the Annual Cherry Blossom Festival, and all the trees in the city are full of luscious, fluffy white blossoms for only about 2 weeks until they all fall off. My roommates and some other people from the program and I walked to the Washington Monument where they were holding the Smithsonian kite festival, and there were literally thousands of people out there flying all kinds of crazy kites. Then we walked over to the Tidal Basin, which is kind of just a big pond, and the World War II memorial which is very new (it was just built in 2004). We also saw the Treasury Department, the Ronald Reagan building, and a bunch of others, but because it's so crowded with tourists on the weekends we haven't ventured over to the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorials yet. We also walked by the White House (which you can actually see from our intersection), which doesn't really allow tours anymore but I'm going to try really hard to get one before I leave. You have to go through a really long security clearance process, then get on a waiting list, and it's pretty difficult to achieve. But since I work with people who are White House correspondents, know some other people who work there, and have my press credentials I might be able to find a way to get in before I leave. My press credentials already give me extended access to areas of the Capitol that aren't open to the general public, so that's pretty cool. There is actually a whole underground tunnel system that connects the White House to all the surrounding House and Senate Buildings (Reyburn, Cannon, Longsworth Hall, etc) that host a lot of the events I go to for work, which I didn't know before and got to ride on! I also might get a chance to listen in on a Supreme Court hearing, which would be awesome because I just took a course on the Court last quarter.
There are tons of great clubs and bars to go to at night, and the city is really know for its great night life. There's still a lot to do if you are underage, you just have to sort of plan in advance and find out which venues are hosting college or all ages nights.
Everyone in the city seems really unusually nice, which is not what I was expecting at all. Usually I associate big cities with unfriendly people, but all the salespeople and everyone you meet around and in the streets are so friendly and outgoing and helpful. D.C. is a cool city because it's really diverse, almost no one is "from" here and there are people from all over the country and world who come here to live, study, and work.
Tomorrow night (Friday) we are going to a basketball game, Wizards v. Miami Heat, with a bunch of people from our program so that should be fun. We're also going to walk down to Georgetown and see that area, and hopefully find some fun stuff to do at night.
Miss you all, feel free to comment and I will do my best to update often!
I think I'm going to try and regularly include links to my posts from the website of the company I work for, because when an intern posts something it just says "staff" instead of our name and I really want to have record of which ones I worked on.
Here are the ones I've done so far (remember it is a professional site, so if you leave comments make sure they are not directed to or about me!!):4/3/08
Clinton campaign discusses economic red phone ad, Cleaver's remarks, PA primary, and more
Conference Call: Clinton Campaign assesses the "state of the race" (audio)
4/2/08
Cato panel discusses radical solutions to failing African governments
Cato panelist calls Western aid to Africa "penny wise and pound foolish" (audio)
4/1/08
Congress grills oil executives over profits, subsidies, and global warming
Hofmeister: Oil prices increases not controlled by oil companies (audio)
Simon: ExxonMobil's tax bills have grown more than their profits (audio)
Cleaver: Approval ratings of oil companies are lower than those of Congress (audio)
Inslee: There is public anger over oil industry subsidies (audio)
Protesting profits (photos)
