Interning in DC

One of the things that really attracted me to SIS was its location in DC. During the summer, the government, nonprofits, and all other assorted organizations are choked with interns coming from all over the country. The fact is, its hard to find a summer internship – especially one that you actually want. But being located in DC means that as I go to SIS, I can get an internship during the semester, when there’s much less competition for the most desirable internships.

This is the type of situation that has enabled me to intern this semester at the Arms Control Association. I study International Politics for my degree here, but the real reason I came here was to work on nuclear nonproliferation issues. But being that there are only a handful of nonproliferation-focused nonprofits here in DC, its easier to find an internship at one of them during the school year than during the summer.

At ACA I am getting a lot of great experience working in the nuclear nonproliferation field. What I’m doing there is mainly helping them write Arms Control Today, one of the leading nonproliferation publications. When I took the internship, I figured on a typical internship experience. You know the deal – you do all the research and hard work, someone higher up puts their name on it and gets the credit. Instead, they’ve had me write news articles for ACT. So not only am I really delving into the issues I care about, but I even get credit for it.

Since starting in January, I’ve written an article for each of the two issues that have been published. My first was on two biological research labs that are opening up inside two of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons labs. While it doesn’t really seem that any biological weapons research is going on, other countries tend not to take you at your word when you say, “Don’t worry about that biological lab inside our nuclear weapons facility… its not making biological weapons.” My second article was written about a new hotline that is being installed between the Chinese and US militaries, and I also did an analysis of the Pentagon’s new 2008 Military Power of China report. So even though I still have to do some of the usual intern activities (stuffing envelopes, anyone?) I’m also getting into some really good, substantive stuff and am getting to produce my own work on it.

Anyway, the point here is just that great internships are few and far between, and youre a lot more likely to snag one for yourself if you are in DC year round and are available for fall and spring internships.

-Jeremy