Internship Location: Madison WI
Organization Type: Federal Government
Policy Areas: Foreign Relations, Congressional Operations (specific to the news of the semester)
Throughout this internship, you get a unique perspective of the work of a congressional office. As a legislative intern, your main tasks include answering phones, listening to voicemails, sorting through postal mail, and reading emails. The most common correspondences are legislative opinions and casework with federal agencies, but Senator Baldwin’s office also receives tour requests, scheduling, federal grants, and military academy nominations. Something that surprised me about this internship was the knowledge you will build about current events. The volume and topics of legislative opinion calls often reflect news stories, so it is very important to stay informed. It was good to have a baseline understanding of a lot of policy from my previous classes at La Follette as casework often deals with individuals’ experiences with these policies. This was one of the main takeaways of this internship for me, learning how policy affects real people. Additionally, I believe that the variety of calls and topics teaches you to think on your feet. You talk to a lot of different people with a lot of different perspectives. Not all calls are easy, but I’d say that the difficult ones challenged me the most and strengthened my skills. I would absolutely recommend this internship to any student that is looking to go into policy or government relations. Even if you don’t end up working for the federal government specifically, learning communication skills, empathy, and gaining office experience applies to lots of other careers.