By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
A summer internship is a right of passage — real world work experience and some guidance for college students as to want to do when they graduate.
Several area students are interning at Congressman Rush Holt’s office as part of their summer experience.
”I was interested in government and the best way to learn about how government works is to intern in the office of my representative,” said Marc Eder of Princeton.
Mr. Eder is a senior at Brandeis University majoring in Middle Eastern studies and history, minoring in economics and computer science.
”My high school had a lot of politically charged students, so I took an AP government class in my senior year and got interested. So, I decided to see if government was something I was interested in and passionate about so I looked for an internship on the Hill.”
In Washington, the summer interns started the last week of May and will continue through the beginning August. Mr. Eder works three days a week with three other interns.
”We all rotate the days of the week,” he said. “The great part about being an intern in the DC office, there are a lot of interns down here, so they have a summer intern lecture series. I’m learning a lot, we’ve gotten to attend hearings … and take notes on what is said, we give tours of the Capitol building and I love history. Interacting with the constituents is pretty cool.”
Some lecturers the DC summer interns have gotten to hear Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Charles Boldwin (head of NASA), other senators and cabinet members.
”It’s great exposure to different points of view and a great learning experience,” said Mr. Eder. “When it comes to looking for an internship, I feel you’re not here for politics, you’re here to learn about government and how it works.”
Some of Mr. Eder’s responsibilities include working with constituents on the phone, correspondence and updating Rep. Holt’s website.
”The biggest thing I’ve taken from this internship is I had no idea how much work went into a legislative office and how many people it takes and how much work a representative does for his constituents.”
”I’m hoping to take this experience and use how to interact with constituents and people and apply it to whatever I choose to do after college,” he said. “I know whatever it is it will involve working with people who may not share my views on everything.”
This desire to take what they’ve learned over their summer vacation fuels many an interns passion and drive.
”I want to apply what I’ve learned here to policy making in an international level,” said Deborah Brodsky, who hails from West Windsor and is a junior at Brandeis University, majoring in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and minoring in linguistics. “What I want to learn here is how western and non-Western governments relate to one another.”
Ms. Brodsky is working on events, drafting letters to constituents and dealing with issues and works with outreach in the district. “It’s truly a rewarding experience seeing events come together and what constituents take away from them,” she said.
One event Ms. Brodsky worked on was a workshop for firefighters that assisted them in getting grants.
”It was a big success and we had a very large attendance with a lot of departments,” she said.
Research for the workshop included which departments to invite and how to help the firefighters benefit.
”The most valuable thing I’ve taken away is how constituents relate to their representatives and seek them out for help on the local level,” said Ms. Brodsky. “I never understood that before.”
She became interested in studying government after 9/11 when she was 10 years old.
”I became interested in how the United States related to Muslims,” she said. “From that I developed an interest in how the United States relates to non-Western countries and how that relates to policy making. I decided to study policymaking at the grass roots level. What I’m seeing here are much more local issues and issues I never would have studied so deeply if I were not at Rep. Holt’s office.”
”I’m going to take what I’m learning here and apply it to my studies,” she said.
For another intern, being on the inside of the political world is providing introspective on her chosen career.
”I’ve learned the inner works of how a congressman’s’ district office works,” said Katherine Richards of Hopewell, a junior at Lafayette College, studying government and law and minoring in economics. “I never knew that before.”
Ms. Richards became interested in politics in her freshman year at Lafayette with an introduction to U.S. politics class.
”I’m very interested in learning how the office works and since I’m interested in how government works. I wanted to have contact with the constituents and see how the inner office works.”
She has answered a lot of calls and letters and assists case workers with their duties. A few weeks ago she helped set up an event for the U.S. Service Academy inductees, who are local high school students, at Rep. Holt’s house.
Rep. Holt said interns are invaluable to him as a way to reach out to the people he serves.
”This is intended to be an educational opportunity for them and a great benefit for me. We have a lot of work to do, we have more than 700,000 people I represent in five counties and they bring me questions on everything under the sun (from his constituents).”
Interns responsibilities include mailings, communicating with constituents.
Almost everything I do and what the interns help me with is communication,” said Rep. Holt.
”The interns come with a lot of talent and help me research a lot of issues,” he said. “A lot of them come from local schools. It’s clearly a plus in their application if they know the district. Part of my job is to relate the issues to the locality.”
Fifteen of the 17 interns in Rep. Holt’s offices hail from New Jersey.
