Washington D.C. in the summer months becomes more like Washington D. I. (the District of Interns).  Going to work in the morning on the Metro reveals large swaths of college age, well-dressed, people, on their way to the heart of the city.  If there is any doubt that these are interns, one only needs to look at their badges (governmental interns receive an identifiable “intern” badge) or listen in to their conversations.  Often times interns travel in friend groups, or work groups, headed to the same place.  In either case, they will often talk to each other about the kinds of work they are doing in so-and-so’s office or for this-or-that agency while on leave from their various universities and colleges located around the country.

Noticing these large groups of people one is forced to wonder: why intern?  Is it the great pay and glamorous lifestyle?  No, that surely can’t be it.  Most people could likely make more working a summer job back home.  The fact that we are all riding a dirty metro displays that there is little glamour in the whole thing.  Is it the ability to put this on the resume for better chances at future employment?  This is indeed a perk, however, having an internship on your resume does surely not guarantee a job position.  In addition, one could likely have a very good looking resume going out into the workfield without ever doing an internship.  Is it the experience of it?  This seems like a much closer answer to the truth, but maybe not in the traditional sense of experience.

The answer that I have come to accept is experience in a kind of “trial and error” sense.  By this, I mean we intern to test out certain theories of what environment we want to work in or what kind of work we want to be doing.  At Valpo, the word “vocation” is thrown about often, forcing you to start thinking about what this may mean for you fairly early on in your college career.  Where do you belong?  Where does your passion lie?  In essence, what do you want to do for the large majority of the rest of your life.  No pressure.

Throughout one’s college career we develop theories of what we want to be doing and what we will enjoy, however, we rarely acknowledge that these are only theories.  Once we decide on a passion and ideal career trajectory, it is easy to forget that this is largely unbased.  We have never actually tried doing this kind of work for 40 hours, 5 days, a week.  In this way, it is like a question that we forget is a question.  We assume we know the answer because we think we know ourselves, but in reality this is something that needs to be proven.  Do we actually know ourselves as well as we think we do?

This, then, is where internships come in.  Internships provide a relatively safe, temporal, chance to test out a career in the real world.  If you like it, as you thought you would, you get a sense of satisfaction.  You now have proof that the trajectory you see yourself on is the one for you.  This opens up new questions though, of more specifics.  Now that you know what the work you want to do is, you must figure out in what way you want to enter into this field and in what capacity you want to work.

However, there is also an alternative response to an internship. It might be that you end up having a rude awakening, that what you assumed would be your ideal career may be less than ideal.  This, while it can be momentarily jarring, is actually just as helpful to your self and career development.  This teaches you that you need to go back to the drawing board, come up with a new theory, and test it again.

This is how the life of the intern is truly a process of questioning, questions being answered, and this answer somehow always leading to more questioning  Once this is realized, though, there is a sense of solidarity on the morning Metro ride.  Yes, all us interns may be doing different kinds of work and may be at different points in our lives, but we are still trying to all answer the same questions, and in the end, we will all get one of the same two answers.  Whatever the answer may be at the end, we are all learning critical things about ourselves as people and, in the case of CAPS fellow, workers for social justice.

About a week into my internship with Lutheran Services in America was when I had my first “CAPS Moment”. I am not sure if this is a real term, but I think it best describes a moment in which a CAPS fellow feels a deep sense of purpose in their called location. I began my internship on a Wednesday and those first few days at Lutheran Services in America were spent with lots of cursory research. My fellowship has a goal of researching the trends of the nonprofit sector, so I therefore began much like I would have begun if this was a research project at Valpo. I read widely and broadly about the nonprofit sector and the organization’s role in it using websites and  journal articles. Even though this was not a university setting but the real world, due to the similar processes my mindset was one of intellectual curiosity, not delving too much into the meaning behind the work. That was until the first Monday.

Within the first few hours of this day I got an offer from one of the supervisors to go with her and one of our member CEOs to a “Hill visit”. Lutheran Services in America acts as an umbrella to 300 Lutheran based nonprofit organizations around the world, working with them to provide financial assistance, advice, connections, etc. and ensuring these organizations are running well.  This CEO was one who had volunteered to advocate for the protection of Medicaid.

Myself, this CEO, our supervisor, Kim, and another intern, walked over to the Congressional offices. It was a supremely imposing building, both inside and out. We made it to the office of the representative we were visiting and got a sit down with one of his staff members. There I was, sitting on a regal couch in one of the offices of a member of Congress, sitting next to a CEO of an important social services organization, and sitting across from a well-dressed staff member. I suddenly felt very out of place and acutely aware that I was an intern who was not even out of college yet. What on earth was I doing here?! I became very self-conscious and awkward. What do I normally do with my limbs when sitting? Do I cross my legs or not? Is my shirt tucked in? Who do I look at?

Then the CEO began talking. He talked about the services his organization offered in its respective state and the incredible work they were doing. He discussed a few heartwarming stories about groups of siblings who found their way safely into loving foster families and whose lives were forever changed for the better by his organization. He also talked about how much his organization and those they serve, rely heavily on Medicaid.  Kim mentioned how much this affected, not just his constituents, but also the constituents of so many other organizations in the Lutheran Services network.

Sitting on that couch I received my CAPS moment. Suddenly, the work I was doing for this network was not just some other paper. All at once I realized, perhaps for the first time since I got there, the real extent to which this was indeed the real world, and the extent to which this work that I was doing could affect these people.

Please understand, I am under no delusions of grandeur that the report I will have written by the end of the summer will fix all of the growing issues in these programs. I realize that I, just a lowly intern and 19 year old undergrad, will of course not be able to fix all of these issues. But that didn’t really matter right then and there. What mattered was that I had, and have, an opportunity, just like that Congressman and his staff, and just like that CEO, to make a difference for people, however small it may end up being. I have a purpose here in DC.

I returned back to the office and sat down at my desk. I opened my laptop and continued my research, seemingly just like before. But, this time, I had a sense of purpose that this work matters and that I may be able to in some way make a difference.