Internship Placements: Trust Katy

If you’re reading this, you’re most likely a future WAIPer scrolling through the blog posts looking for advice, just as I did a few months ago. While in a sense I’m attempting to give you advice, I know that you will worry about your internship placements anyways; but hopefully this will demonstrate an example of a success story.  

Let me start off by saying that Katy Hogan is such an amazing program coordinator. She helped each of us secure our internships and guided us through the process, which differed between each person. As a dual-degree in Public Affairs and International Studies, I was leaning towards a nonprofit that had an international development aspect to it. While I ended up in the nonprofit sector, international development was not the route I took.

Connections are probably the most important aspect to live in DC, and Katy has a lot of them. After we had accepted our placement in the WAIP Program, she immediately sent out a list of internship sites that wanted John Glenn Fellows. She instructed us to respond with any that interested us, even in the slightest. One jumped out at me, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. While the internship did not directly align with what (I thought) I wanted to do, I figured I would at least let Katy give them my resume and see what happened.

Fast forward a few weeks, I secured an interview. They offered me the position at the end of the call and gave me 24 hours to decide. This was a problem for many reasons. One, 24 hours did not seem like enough time to determine what I wanted to do for the summer. Two, it was the day before many of my other internship applications were due, making me more nervous about the possibility of an early decision. Three, it also happened to be spring break, so talking to my mom and Katy about the offer proved to be difficult. However, Katy responded in a heartbeat, like always, and told me that as long as I was excited and had a good gut feeling, that I should accept the offer.

Despite the fact that it was not where I originally expected to be interning, I accepted the position and looking back, I couldn’t be happier that I did. Although there were downs during the first month of my internship, there were an infinite amount of ups, and Katy was there for me through them all.

 

Overall, trust the system and use Katy as a resource.

Good Luck!

Sharon Glenn