Aishwarya Narayan (’16)

This summer I had the exciting opportunity to work at House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee supporting the Ranking Member of the committee Congressman Eliot Engel. Throughout the course of my internship, I attended various briefings, meetings, and lectures around Capitol Hill, took notes for staffers, drafted remarks for the Congressman for markups and hearings, and got lots and lots of free food! My area of focus was primarily Asia, specifically US-India relations, but I was able to pursue a broad variety of projects from the crisis in the Rio Grande Valley to the “right to be forgotten” ruling in the EU.

My goal for this internship was to get a feel for the atmosphere of Capitol Hill, and I was lucky enough to be able to do just that. My brief stint as a Congressional intern exposed me to the inner workings of Congress and the legislative process. As an added perk, this summer was particularly interesting in terms of foreign affairs occurrences, and because of my internship I was at the very forefront of learning about the latest happenings in Ukraine, Syria, and Iraq. The Congressional Summer Intern Lecture Series also brought in some amazing speakers, including John Boehner, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (on whom House of Cards is based)! When it was finally time to leave, I realized that I would love to return to DC someday, if only for the fact that DC has way too many lawyers and not enough engineers!