By this time, I have just completed my third week of interning, and to say it has been a constant learning experience would be an understatement. This summer I am working at Ingenuity, an organization that not only raises awareness about the importance of a good quality arts education in the Chicago public schools, but also, it works to make sure that arts education stays in the schools and that everyone is benefiting from it from the research and data they collect from over 600 schools and 1,000 arts partners. Sounds simple enough, right? At Valparaiso University, I am a Criminology and Political Science double major (and a theatre minor, but most people forget about that when I tell them my majors).  When I told everyone I planned to spend my summer working at an arts education organization, many people were confused. I got a lot of interesting thoughts on […]

“My name is Aaron, and I work for a lobbying firm” I have always cringed when I heard that word. My teachers, parents, CNN and basically everyone had resolved to decry a whole profession as “unethical” and “corrupt.” Even now, as I rushed to tell family and friends about my new job in D.C., veiled smiles said “you’re one of them now.” Upon my arrival in our nation’s capital, I had resigned to embrace my new role: a puppet, ruled by special interest. Only Venn Strategies isn’t like that. There are no smoke-filled, back room meetings. The office isn’t filled with power-hungry D.C. elites or slaves to special interest. We don’t work to control government, we work to understand it. The federal government is an incredible complex machine with lots of moving parts. As a government affairs firm, our job at Venn is to keep tabs on what’s going on […]