My three days at the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion were such an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence, and I am sur­prised at how much I was able to do in such a short amount of time. My men­tor, Massie Ritsch ’98, is the Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Exter­nal Affairs and Out­reach in the Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Out­reach. His office is the liai­son between the pub­lic and the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and is in charge of out­reach to many dif­fer­ent con­stituents, includ­ing par­ents, teach­ers, youth, orga­ni­za­tions, and the com­mu­ni­ties. I thank him and his assis­tant, Kim Mor­ton, for prepar­ing such a won­der­ful three days for me! Despite being at a spe­cific office, I was exposed to many dif­fer­ent offices as well as other depart­ments through­out my three days. It was incredible!

Jan­u­ary 10, 2012

The first day gave me a good overview of what the Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Out­reach does. I got a tour of the office and was intro­duced to many dif­fer­ent peo­ple with enthu­si­asm and curios­ity. It felt great being so wel­comed, even as a three-day visitor.

Mr. Ritsch took me out to lunch near the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and dis­cussed every­thing from Prince­ton tra­di­tions to oppor­tu­ni­ties at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. It was really help­ful talk­ing to him and being able to see the poten­tial my career had. He was inter­ested in what I wanted to do and what career paths I was con­sid­er­ing. He offered sug­ges­tions and told me about his own experiences.

Later in the after­noon, I went to a meet­ing with Car­rie Jasper, who is in charge of out­reach to par­ents. We met with mem­bers from a group called Mom Con­gress. Mom Con­gress con­sists of moth­ers from every state meet­ing to improve edu­ca­tion through focus­ing on dif­fer­ent issues in each of their com­mu­ni­ties. It was inspir­ing see­ing how hard some par­ents were work­ing in their states and schools to make their schools bet­ter. I took notes for the meet­ing and was able to hear some of the plan­ning details and processes for the Department’s upcom­ing sum­mer conference.

Jan­u­ary 11, 2012:

Janie and Massie Ritsch

In the morn­ing, I made my way to the White House to meet Eddie Lee, who for­merly worked in the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and who is now in the White House Office of Pub­lic Engage­ment. Mr. Lee leads the Office of Pub­lic Engagement’s out­reach to the Asian Amer­i­can and Pacific Islander com­mu­nity. We dis­cussed every­thing from his career path to major issues within the Asian-American and Pacific Islander com­mu­nity, and he gave me some great insight about my future and work­ing in Wash­ing­ton D.C.

Fol­low­ing that, I returned to the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion to attend a meet­ing with my men­tor and stu­dents from Colum­bia Col­lege. This was one of the many con­stituen­cies he meets with to engage and develop rela­tion­ships with.

For the remain­der of the after­noon, I spent time research­ing active par­ent groups for Car­rie. The Depart­ment is look­ing for more out­lets to reach par­ents through so they can dis­sem­i­nate more best prac­tices and infor­ma­tion to them.

Jan­u­ary 12, 2012:

The last day was very excit­ing as I got to make a sec­ond trip to the White House to attend the White House Asian Amer­i­can and Pacific Islander Youth Lead­er­ship Brief­ing. It was an oppor­tu­nity for young Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders to find out what the White House is doing to engage the AAPI youth com­mu­nity and to hear from youth about how they could bet­ter engage them. It was a packed day full of great pan­els and speak­ers includ­ing Chris Lu, the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama, and Raj Shah, the Admin­is­tra­tor for the US Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment. Some of the top­ics dis­cussed in the pan­els and by the speak­ers were pub­lic ser­vice and issues in higher education.

Lastly, I attended the Race to the Top Phil­an­thropy Con­fer­ence at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Home Builders (NAHB) Build­ing to take notes for one of the smaller dis­cus­sions. At this con­fer­ence, private-sector stake­hold­ers and Race to the Top state team mem­bers explored oppor­tu­ni­ties to share own­er­ship of the imple­men­ta­tion and improve­ment of Race to the Top. I was only able to attend one out of the three days of this con­fer­ence, but it was a great con­fer­ence that involved bring­ing together many pri­vate foun­da­tions, Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Arne Dun­can, and many edu­ca­tions and state workers.

For any­one con­sid­er­ing this Princetern­ship, I would highly encour­age tak­ing this oppor­tu­nity. It is great for any­one inter­ested in edu­ca­tion or gov­ern­ment. I got to see sev­eral aspects of gov­ern­ment and talk to peo­ple in many dif­fer­ent depart­ments. As I trav­eled to dif­fer­ent loca­tions to do spe­cific tasks or meet peo­ple, I was able to get a taste of the entire city and could really see myself liv­ing in Wash­ing­ton D.C. after I grad­u­ated. I loved the envi­ron­ment and the peo­ple in it.

Again, I am so grate­ful to Mr. Ritsch and Career Ser­vices for this oppor­tu­nity. As a fresh­man, hav­ing expo­sure to the gov­ern­ment as a whole and the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion has reaf­firmed my belief that I want to con­tinue learn­ing about edu­ca­tion and enter a career devoted to improv­ing pub­lic education.