Caitlin Huber is a senior International Affairs & Modern Language (Spanish) major, pursuing a certificate in Modeling, Scenarios and Military Games. She is a writer for the Borgen Project magazine and blog, an organization which advocates for US foreign policy to be focused on poverty alleviation around the world. During her freshman year, Caitlin got involved in the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC) by going on a medical service trip to Peru. She now serves on the GT chapter executive board. She has also studied abroad in Uruguay and Argentina with Dr. Bowman. In Spring 2014, Caitlin interned on Capitol Hill with Representative Dan Kildee’s (MI- 5) office. She enjoyed being in DC so much she applied for the GT DC Internship Program and was selected to receive a stipend to work again for Rep. Kildee’s office in Summer 2015. Caitlin is currently interning with the Hudson Foundation and hopes to work in a foreign policy capacity for the federal government when she graduates. We asked her a few questions about how her time at Tech helped her succeed in this internship.
What did you enjoy most about your internship and what did you find most challenging?
My internship on the Hill was incredible. Just to walk by the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and the Capitol every morning on my way to work was special and made the experience feel unique. My duties as an intern changed day-to-day depending on what was going on in the office. Because I worked for a freshman congressman who had a relatively small staff, I think I got the chance to be a little more involved in the research side of the office. I generally got to do preliminary vote research, sit in meetings to observe and take notes on a variety of different domestic and foreign policy issues, and do issue-based research.
Tell us about an experience that made an impression on you during your internship.
During the last month of my internship, my boss took me and another intern on a Capitol tour. We got to walk around the House chamber where the State of the Union is every year. It just so happened that the person taking us on the tour used to work as a page for the House and knew how to get us into the party cloakroom. The cloakroom is where members sit, eat, discuss and argue before and after votes. The House was not in session the day of our tour so we got explore a little; it was an amazingly one-of-a-kind experience to sit in the seats of the members on the floor, stand behind the podium and walk through the cloakroom.
In what ways did your time at Tech prepare you for the internship?
I think the main thing that I learned at Tech that transferred to my internship is the ability to present myself professionally and confidently. I am a naturally quiet person, so the ability to project my ideas and opinions in a way that was both competent and self-assured is a real accomplishment for me. The people I met my first year and a half at Tech, both professors and classmates, helped me develop into someone who can fit in to a government office, a club leadership team or an intermural soccer team.
