Baseball, Button Downs, and Barack Obama

Yes. I, along with my fellow WAIP fellows, was just rows away from POTUS yesterday. We were all enjoying- minus the heat that was killing us- the annual Congressional Baseball Game, where out of the blue, there stands THE President of the United States in the middle of the democrat dugout.  I remember shortly after I first arrived in D.C. I saw a post on a high school friend’s Facebook talking about how she finally saw the President “in real life” after 3 years of attending American University.  Looks like I beat that record! Sure, we were several rows away and he was in the same coffee shop a table away from her, but that moment just reiterates to me how small D.C really is.

About a week ago, I received an email from a man who rides the train with another man, who received an email from my father, about how I was looking to schedule some informational interviews over this summer with people who work in the environmental field.

Lets say that again…

My father kindly obliged to send a few emails to his friends who work in energy and environmental careers in the D.C area to see if they would know anyone in their office interested in speaking with me about potential career paths, job advice, or just to grab a coffee and talk about their professional journey. In asking my dad to do this, I did not expect more than 3 or 4 interviews to come out of it, given the busy schedule and time commitment it would be to speak with “just another intern”. I was almost overwhelmed with the amount of responses, and very thankful. Not even a day after these introductions were sent, I received an email from a man who actually works at a different office within the EPA (the department which I am working this summer) saying how he rides the train everyday with a guy who received one of my fathers messages, and wanted to know if I would be interested in learning more about what he does at the EPA. I was astounded at how fast word travels, even a very short email from one guy to another about his daughter.

In my time in D.C, not only have I first hand have seen how interconnected the entire city is, but I have also seen the vast amount of opportunities it has to offer. These experiences and so many others have shaped my postgraduate goals and really pushed me to work extremely hard this summer to make those goals happen. I have been so blessed at the amount of opportunities that have been given to me thus far, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the summer has to offer.

Until next time,

Kennedy Kowalski