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Career Development: Internship Summaries 2003
AmeriCorps*VISTA Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Billed as the “domestic Peace Corps,” VISTA’s mission is to combat poverty by sending volunteers to work in community organizations. In addition to training and paying the volunteers, VISTA provides operations funds to the organizations running the VISTA project. One of VISTA’s strategic issue areas is financial asset generation for low-income families. VISTA programs that promote homeownership, assist micro-businesses and/or provide financial education are collectively known as the Entrepreneur Corps (EC).
I joined VISTA for the summer as an Anti-Poverty Fellow and was tasked with surveying the EC. I worked with two consultants on a process evaluation, which would set the stage for a third-party outcome-based evaluation. Specifically, my job was to investigate projects related to homeownership and act as a liaison between the consultants, the director, and the agency’s Policy and Evaluation Department. I wrote a comprehensive exit survey, and in the process, piloted a new online tool developed by the AmeriCorps information specialist.
During the first half of the summer I also worked on the “Initiative to End Sub-Standard Housing in Appalachia.” As the point person for the project, I helped write a concept paper for the kick-off summit, researched community-based groups for potential partners, and drafted an outline for a research paper on the issue.
Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS)
Madison, WI
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) is a think tank on the UW campus that works on labor issues. I researched the relationship between state fiscal policy (taxes) and economic development (jobs). I also read and analyzed reports issued by rival organizations on that general topic and produced a set of "Tax Fact Sheets" covering many topics in fiscal policy. These sheets are meant to provide citizens with a clear explanation of some of the more technical aspects of their tax code. I knew nothing about taxes going in, and came out with quite a bit of knowledge. COWS is looking for a researcher for this next summer, and their projects are quite diverse, but focus mostly on economic development.
Virchow, Krause and Company, LLC
Madison, WI
The firm’s public sector consulting practice has over 100 associates in several cities (Madison, Milwaukee and Minneapolis). Virchow, Krause, and Company is a private-sector consulting firm located in Madison, WI.
My experience at VK has some important and relevant relationships to the coursework I am pursuing and have taken at La Follette. In particular, I am responsible for much of the statistical analyses that are performed on customer satisfaction surveys done for municipalities and public utilities. Another project I have worked on is performing cost-benefit feasibility studies for municipalities interested in constructing a broadband network. I have also assisted a public power authority in improving its budget process. This particular project involved several days of travel each week for about nine weeks over the summer.
SmokeFree Wisconsin
Madison, WI
SmokeFree Wisconsin (SFW) is a single-issue advocacy organization concerned with reducing tobacco use in Wisconsin. SFW is focused on two major activities: 1) lobbying the state legislature on statewide tobacco control issues, such as funding for a statewide tobacco control program or increasing the tobacco tax and 2) assisting local communities pass clean indoor air ordinances. SFW is funded entirely by grants and receives no state or federal money.
During my internship with SmokeFree Wisconsin, I assisted local community coalitions in enacting smoke-free restaurant ordinances and helped to research and analyze national and state tobacco control policies. I was also responsible for designing, writing and editing communication vehicles for grassroots supporters, partner organizations and legislators.
I enjoyed working for Smokefree Wisconsin. I found the staff to be a nice group who was interested in assisting me with my career goals. I was able to work on topics that were particularly interesting to me.
United States General Accounting Office
Health Policy
Washington, D. C.
The GAO is a federal agency that reports to the legislative, rather than the executive branch. The GAO responds to requests for information from Congress and the Senators. Such requests consist of policy analysis and program evaluation of federal programs, organizations and laws. The GAO deals with nearly every aspect of federal government and thus they deal with nearly every policy realm.
As an intern for the GAO, I was a full participant in an investigative team responding to a Congressional request to research and evaluate the Veterans Affair’s case management program for chronic hepatitis C patients. In this capacity, I reviewed medical records and interviewed VA program officials and health care providers.
I led the team in data analysis, which identified major shortcomings in VA’s program.
Department of Workforce Development
Office of the Secretary
As an intern, I worked on a variety of interesting projects including the following: research on best practices of community-based organizations assisting ex-offenders; research on economic development; developing a federal DOL grant application; Monitoring TANF and WIA reauthorization; research on the health-care worker shortage; research on W-2 for the Lt. Governor’s Women=Prosperity initiative; Delancey Street replication; and DHFS/DOC/DWD collaboration. I was also able to participate in many interesting conference calls and meetings, including: conference calls with the National Governor’s Association (NGA) and meetings on health-care worker shortage. My internship provided a great networking opportunity both within and outside of state government.
I highly recommend this internship. From the beginning of the summer I was treated as a member of the staff and never felt like an intern. I was fortunate to be able to work on many projects directly with the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and the Executive Assistant. Not only did the internship provide insight into the daily functioning of state government, but also I was also able to learn more about the interaction between federal, state, and local governments.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters
Office of the Chief Financial Officer
Washington, D.C.
I worked on the formulation of the fiscal year 2005 budget submission to the Office of Management and Budget. I worked a great deal with the NASA budget database to retrieve data and assist in the preparation of presentations to the Comptroller, Executive Council, and the Administrator. It was an interesting time to be at NASA because the Columbia Investigation report had not been released and so many budget options were being considered. I also had the chance to observe some interesting organizational culture aspects of the agency. I think that anyone interested in budget policy should consider this internship.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Waste Management Specialist
The title Waste Management Specialist really doesn’t describe my position at the DNR. I worked for the Recycling Team. The team had contracted out a study of the waste composition of Wisconsin’s landfills. The idea was to find out what was in the landfill to see what people were throwing away so we could determine how much was being recycled and where there was room for improvement. This is where my position came in. I was basically the data analyst for the team. They gave me the draft of the study and I helped with the finally revisions and making the data more understandable to the team and the layperson. I also performed comparisons to other states and determined the recycling rates for the state.