Kylee Deering | A&L Co-Editor // Morgan McGrew | A&L Co-Editor
Buena Vista University student, Hanna Zinn is currently interning through the Washington Center in Washington D.C. She started this fall in her senior year. Making it a goal to learn more about the political process, Zinn has worked hard throughout her time at BVU to get there. Now it’s a reality.
When she first came to BVU, Zinn’s parents were approached by Dr. Best and Lisa Best about the Washington Center. Dr. Best is BVU’s campus liaison to the Washington Center. He assisted Zinn in preparing for her semester away.
“She’s a strong student who has accumulated a lot of professional experiences in other internship settings that prepared her very well for that environment,” says Best. “So she’s motivated, capable, prepared and it all just came together.”
At the Washington Center, the interns work from 9 am – 5 pm for the Sindhi American Political Action Committee (SAPAC). Zinn starts her day around 7:30 am to get ready and be on her 30-minute metro ride in time. During her work day, Zinn does a lot of research and development for organizations. Every month, the interns get a new topic to research. They develop a story and write an article for their newsletter. In addition to that, Zinn goes to meetings on Capitol Hill, meets with senators and representatives, attends committee hearings and goes to various events around the D.C. area.
“While I’ve been out here, I’ve had so many amazing opportunities to do informational interviews,” says Zinn. “I’ve had informational interviews with the former ambassador of Paraguay, the policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and with the policy director of the American Association of University Women.”
Dr. Best spoke about some of the key benefits of attending the Washington Center. The obvious one; Washington D.C. becomes the student’s campus for the period of the internship. They have access to politics, government, cultural events, professional sports and everything else that goes on in Washington D.C. The students also receive a full semester’s academic credit for their time at the Washington Center. And their access to internships is plentiful.
“One of the key advantages of the Washington Center is that they have relationships with conceivably thousands of potential internship placements so it becomes extremely likely the student will get an internship placement with an organization in a setting and doing really the exact kind of work they wish to do,” says Dr. Best.
Zinn has already learned a lot during her first half of the semester. When first getting to D.C., she was not as familiar with the Sindh people. She came to know that they’re an ethnic group, not a religious group like she initially thought.
“There’s people that are Hindu, Sindhi, Christian Sindhi, Jewish Sindhi, Muslim Sindhi,” says Zinn. “They’re all living together very peacefully. They live next door to each other, they don’t have conflict and they’re a very good example of what the rest of the world should be trying to do.”
In addition to her work with the SAPAC, Zinn has been able to experience D.C. with new friends and connections she’s made there.
“It’s just kind of surreal to me that we can go for a bike ride at night and go see the monuments in our nation’s capital and it’s just a very Tuesday night thing to do,” says Zinn.
Zinn will return to BVU with enhanced research and development and critical thinking skills. She’s learned a lot about advocacy and all the background work that goes with it. She plans on pursuing her master’s after graduating in the spring and moving back to Washington D.C.
Zinn’s experience at the Washington Center will add to her resume in a dramatic way. The internship will increase her competitiveness for jobs both nationally and globally.
“We’ve seen that it’s a powerful enhancement to students’ resumes,” says Dr. Best. “I’m very confident that it will work the same way for Hanna.”
