Day 1

My first day at the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion was fan­tas­tic!  Although I have vis­ited Wash­ing­ton, D.C. in the past, noth­ing com­pared to the feel­ing of being amongst the numer­ous gov­ern­ment employ­ees bustling off to var­i­ous agen­cies and hav­ing the sense of being one of them.  When I first arrived at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion build­ing, I was really ner­vous, not know­ing fully what to expect.  My nerves were soon calmed, how­ever, as I was warmly greeted in the main lobby by a very nice and wel­com­ing Sec­re­tary Assis­tant named Jackie.  After giv­ing me a mini tour of the main office area, Jackie intro­duced me to Mr. Massie Ritsch ‘98, the Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Exter­nal Affairs and Out­reach and my Princetern­ship alumni host.  For the first part of the day, Mr. Ritsch gave me an overview of his depart­ment, the Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Out­reach (OCO), describ­ing it as the key line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and the pub­lic sphere.  To ensure mutual com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the Depart­ment and the pub­lic, Mr. Ritsch and his OCO team sponsor/coordinate var­i­ous con­fer­ences and Depart­ment out­reach events through­out the year for com­mu­nity mem­bers, edu­ca­tion asso­ci­a­tions, par­ents, stu­dents, etc.

I was excited to learn that I would have the oppor­tu­nity to help out with one of such out­reach events.  Mr. Ritsch intro­duced me to Ms. Jasper, one of the OCO staff mem­bers charged with Fam­ily Engagement/Parent Out­reach ini­tia­tives.  In order to help with the Department’s upcom­ing out­reach event to pro­mote the active role of father par­tic­i­pa­tion in a child’s edu­ca­tional devel­op­ment, I entered the names and email addresses of poten­tial par­tic­i­pants and cospon­sors into a spread­sheet.  In addi­tion, Ms. Jasper also asked me to research var­i­ous stud­ies that high­lighted the ben­e­fits of hav­ing active par­ents, par­tic­u­larly fathers, involved in the edu­ca­tion process of their chil­dren.  I really enjoyed doing this research because it allowed me to use the skills I’ve learned here at Prince­ton while also giv­ing me an oppor­tu­nity to con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way to some of the Depart­ment of Education’s upcom­ing events.

Day 2

Day two at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion proved to be just as great as the first.  My day began by accom­pa­ny­ing Mr. Ritsch to his first two meet­ings of the day.  At the first meet­ing, I was able to lis­ten in as sev­eral OCO mem­bers dis­cussed the Department’s upcom­ing Col­lege Afford­abil­ity Lis­ten­ing Tour sched­uled to stop at var­i­ous col­lege and high school cam­puses through­out the coun­try.  Given the sig­nif­i­cance of col­lege afford­abil­ity in my own expe­ri­ence, I really appre­ci­ated being able to sit in on this meet­ing and learn how the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion works to keep the pub­lic informed about the recent devel­op­ments and oppor­tu­ni­ties for fed­eral fund­ing when it comes to higher edu­ca­tion.  The sec­ond meet­ing I attended with Mr. Ritsch was the Out­reach Team Meet­ing dur­ing which I got a brief overview of all the dif­fer­ent events and projects that were cur­rently under­way at the Depart­ment.  I really enjoyed being able to sit in on this meet­ing because it gave me an oppor­tu­nity to really see just how multi-faceted the oper­a­tions of the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion truly are.

In addi­tion to these larger group meet­ings, I also met one-on-one with sev­eral other indi­vid­u­als who worked in dif­fer­ent areas of the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion.  I spoke with Dr. Grim­stead, Man­ager of the Pres­i­den­tial Schol­ars Pro­gram, a pro­gram that awards and cel­e­brates a lim­ited num­ber of extremely excep­tional high school stu­dents each year.  Dur­ing my dis­cus­sion with her, Dr. Grim­stead told me about her own per­sonal jour­ney of com­ing to work at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and pro­vided me with some really good advice on how a grad­u­ate degree can be uti­lized within var­i­ous areas of the Depart­ment.  As I am begin­ning to plot my own future plans, talk­ing with Dr. Grim­stead pro­vided me with a greater per­spec­tive on the ben­e­fits and draw­backs of going straight to grad­u­ate school after grad­u­a­tion ver­sus gain­ing actual work­ing expe­ri­ence in the field of edu­ca­tion first through intern­ships and fel­low­ships (many of which can be pro­vided by the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, as was Dr. Grimstead’s experience).

Day 3

The third and final day of my Princetern­ship at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion was really jam-packed.  I started my day by fin­ish­ing up the spread­sheet of names and emails of poten­tial par­tic­i­pants and cospon­sors for the Department’s upcom­ing out­reach event to pro­mote the active role of father par­tic­i­pa­tion in child­hood edu­ca­tion for Ms. Jasper.  After­wards, I pre­sented her with the bit of research that I was able to find on the sub­ject.  Next, I attended a one-on-one meet­ing with Ms. Chong, the Coor­di­na­tor of Mid­dle East­ern and North African Affairs in the Inter­na­tional Affairs office of the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion.  As I talked with Ms. Chong, I was fas­ci­nated by how her expe­ri­ences liv­ing and work­ing abroad in Morocco led her to her cur­rent posi­tion at the Depart­ment.  She also told me about a recent sum­mit she helped to coor­di­nate in which the Depart­ment hosted rep­re­sen­ta­tives from twenty dif­fer­ent coun­tries who came together to discuss/compare their var­i­ous edu­ca­tion sys­tems, from teacher prepa­ra­tion to cur­ricu­lum plans.  I learned so much from my dis­cus­sion with Ms. Chong, par­tic­u­larly about how the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion has so many oppor­tu­ni­ties for those indi­vid­u­als who are inter­ested in com­par­a­tive edu­ca­tional poli­cies across cul­tures and countries. 

After my meet­ing with Ms. Chong, I then met with Ms. Watkins-Foote, the Direc­tor of African Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Out­reach.  She and I had a really great talk as she told me about the dif­fer­ent posi­tions she had held within the Depart­ment prior to arriv­ing at the OCO.  She let me know of all the flex­i­bil­ity there is within the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion as well as con­nect­ing me with some great con­tact peo­ple that could help me with my own academic/career inter­ests regard­ing edu­ca­tional strat­i­fi­ca­tion amongst African Amer­i­can stu­dents.  Next on my agenda was a phone con­fer­ence call with Mr. Michel, the Senior Advi­sor for Eco­nomic Growth and Trade for US Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (USAID).  Given my sum­mer study abroad to Tan­za­nia this past year, Mr. Michel and I were able to com­pare our expe­ri­ences in Tan­za­nia with one another.  He also informed me about some of the ongo­ing mis­sions hap­pen­ing within East­ern Africa and gave me some great infor­ma­tion about poten­tial intern­ships in Tan­za­nia and Kenya with USAID for this upcom­ing summer.

All in all, I was very pleased with my Princetern­ship expe­ri­ence at the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion.  Every­one at the Depart­ment made me feel very wel­come and was more than will­ing to sit down and talk with me and answer any ques­tions I had.  Any­one who is inter­ested in the plethora of oppor­tu­ni­ties that can come from work­ing for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment should def­i­nitely con­sider this Princeternship.