Since I was a little girl, I have wanted to work in government, and this summer I will get my very first taste of doing just that. My name is Rebecca, and I am a sophomore here at Tulane. I am originally from Chicago, and I absolutely have loved my time so far here in New Orleans. I am a double-major in international relations and French, and I am the secretary of Tulane’s Women in Politics. I am very passionate about political issues, and my dream career is a Foreign Service Officer or another similar position. As many careers in international relations require prior government experience, I plan on working for awhile in local and national government. This is why my internship this summer is so important; it is the first step of many that will lead me to my end goal. I will be spending the months of June and July interning in the council office of LaToya Cantrell, and I am very excited to experience what it means to work in government.
I hope to learn a good amount from my internship, lessons that I am sure will be very useful in my future governmental career. First of all, I would like to gain a basic understanding of how city government functions. City government is the foundation of our democracy, and it is a vital component to the functioning of our country. I feel that one cannot understand what it means to work for America if one does not know what it is like to work at its base. I would also like to discover if I want to work in elected, appointed, or career government positions when I am older. Each of those are very different career paths, and it would be helpful to focus in on one of them. My next goals deal more with job skills in general, including how to work in stressful environments, which government jobs undoubtedly are. This is a skill that can be applicable to almost any job I get in the future. Additionally, I would like to learn how to act based on information gathered from multiple perspectives. In my opinion, it is essential in government to account for a plethora of different views of a situation as possible and try to find a middle ground, since one is representing many different people and interests. Lastly, I would like to learn how to be competitive in such a male-dominated field. Political careers severely lack female representations, and I want to be sure that I am not underestimated because of my gender.
This last goal directly ties into the NCI’s mission of preparing woman for leadership in the 21st century. There needs to be more leaders in our government if we want our society to continue to improve, and the NCI and this internship will help me achieve that. The lessons I learn at my internship will enable me to be a better leader within the government, and, thus, in our nation and the wider world. I will absorb all the insight I can in these next two months, and hopefully this will be the beginning of a career that will end in a position where I can influence change.
In the mean time until me internship, I will research New Orleans’s government and specific issues within it in the hope that I will be well-informed upon entering my internship. Furthermore, I intend the brush-up in general on my knowledge of political processes at a local level. I am very excited to intern for LaToya Cantrell, especially since she is such a strong female leader. I think that I will learn a lot by observing how she leads and interacts with her constituents and fellow government employees. I cannot wait to help support a female politician that I greatly admire. I hope that being an intern for her will be just the beginning of a governmental career that will span decades and improve the lives of many.