This summer, I was given the opportunity to work with the country’s largest non-profit research organization, Battelle. During this internship, I performed a variety of activities such as attending and reporting on Congressional hearings, completing biographies and other research projects, and supporting the Government Relations team broadly, in their day-to-day tasks. This required me to build my knowledge of many STEM related subjects such as Physics, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence. 

My work over the summer profoundly changed the way I view several aspects of professional life. Coming from a small town of around 40,000 in rural Ohio, Columbus felt like a massive and scary place when I first moved here. That said, moving to Washington D.C. was even more daunting. While it may be smaller in population technically speaking, the eastern seaboard is far more densely populated, and the suburbs of D.C., notably Alexandria and Arlington, would be considered cities by themselves by Midwest standards. The idea of using public transit to commute to work, which took around an hour each day, was a prospect that I was highly uncomfortable with when I started the summer. While some of this may be attributed to my small-town upbringing and my general lack of urban travel, some of it can also be attributed to misconceptions and stereotypes I applied to “city-folk”. Until my STEP experience, I could have never imagined I would live in a big city. I pre-determined that life to be loud, unclean, monotonous, and unfulfilling. These assumptions I made about this lifestyle could not be more wrong, and I realized very quickly during my time in the district this summer that my anxiety about large population centers came from a very privileged and sheltered world view and I worked constantly to change that.  

Additionally, my perspective on my future as a professional was changed throughout this summer. I never had a clear idea of what I wanted to do for my career. When I was a child, I wanted to be a history professor. I started high school and wanted to be a marketing specialist, and I ended high school wanting to go to law school. After my first year at Ohio State, I thought that I would go to graduate school to do research in political science. Then, shortly after that, I settled on law school. While I still believe that I would like to go to law school, I have transitioned my interest from pursuing corporate law to pursuing a career in government relations. My team’s work at Battelle was engaging, exciting, and meaningful. One aspect of the government relations work that I found particularly interesting is the aspect of communication and customer service. Essentially, to quote a government relations professional I connected with from another defense company, honesty and holding a good reputation is the most important part of government relations work. Honesty is a very important value to me, and I believe that I am an honest person. I also believe that I collaborate well with others, which is integral to the success of the organization I would be representing. This change would not have happened without this opportunity.  

There are a few relationships that helped me achieve these changes. The most obvious of those relationships is my relationship with my great aunt and uncle, longtime North Virginia (NOVA) residents. Having lived in the area for over 30 years, they were able to provide me with more than just a roof over my head, which was greatly appreciated given the cost of living in the area, but they also provided me with sincere local knowledge. They were able to get me adjusted to riding the Metro system every day and they provided the comfort of knowing that I had good conversations and a home cooked meal when I got home from work. This truly helped soothe my anxiety about living in such a densely populated and sometimes chaotic city. Their home became a sanctuary for me. Also, my relationship with my direct supervisor, Thomas Phillips, was important to me. On my first day of work, he personally showed me around the Capitol complex. We were hustling around all day, and it gave me a sense of how fast-paced life in government relations work can be. On the second day, he took me to a rooftop party, celebrating the success of Florida International University’s D.C. programs. While this was a totally random occurrence and had little to do with our own work, it showed me how networking in D.C. worked, and it showed me how much fun it can be. Throughout my time with Battelle, my relationship with Thomas developed into a strong mentorship experience, and I realized that the work he does, along with the rest of the team, is awesome. He is a great leader, and I learned so much from him.  

One event that sticks out as a defining moment of my internship was my attendance at an event in the halls of the Senate which celebrated the accomplishments of Exascale supercomputers. I attended this event with only a few weeks’ worth of experience with Battelle work, and I had truly little knowledge about the incredibly complex nature of these supercomputers. During this event, which I attended by myself, I was able to have interesting conversations with several scientists across many different fields about their use of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Many of these scientists do their research at Battelle managed, DOE sponsored, national labs, so they were more than willing to share their research with me. While I had to ask them to keep their explanations of insanely complex experiments at a layman level, I realized how impressive the work that Battelle helps develop truly is. I started doing intense research on our ongoing projects, and I developed a knowledge of STEM subjects that I did not even know existed. This pursuit of knowledge was incredibly rewarding to me, and it helped me realize that government relations is a great career for someone who wants to learn something new every day.  

While it may not be directly internship related, one of the most important aspects of the STEP program is the ability to experience in a new or unfamiliar location. I might not have been very comfortable in the city, but I absolutely love the outdoors, and I spent many weekends exploring the incredible wildernesses within a two-hour drive from Alexandria, where I lived. I spent three weekends exploring the area in and around Shenandoah National Park, which provided me with some of the best hikes I have ever done. Additionally, the park is free to enter, so it was a very accessible escape from the bustle of NOVA. I was also able to explore the region of Southern Pennsylvania that is famous for fly-fishing, one of my greatest passions in life. I took two weekend trips to the Carlisle area to accomplish this, and I was able to fish some of the most fabled water in American fly-fishing history. Exploring the Carlisle area checked off a bucket list item for me and were two of my favorite parts of the summer. Additionally, I was able to enter a professional bass fishing tournament on the Potomac River, which was very enriching for one of my other fishing-related passions, tournament bass fishing. While I did not finish all that well, I learned so much and I was able to see the beautiful tidal region of the mighty Potomac.  Finally, I rekindled my interest in history this summer, and D.C. provided me with the opportunity to explore this passion. I frequented Civil War battlegrounds such as Gettysburg and Manassas, and I visited Mount Vernon and Monticello. Believe it or not, I only lived two miles from Mount Vernon, and I fished in the same waters as George Washington! Escaping the city actually made me appreciate the city more and D.C.’s proximity to so many beautiful natural spaces and interesting historical sites is one of the reasons I can see myself living there in the future. This aspect of the STEP experience is one that I think is highly underrated and, without it, I would not have had such an enriching summer.  

This summer experience changed my future in many ways. The opportunity to live and work in the city demystified city life and I now have a much broader choice of regions I would like to start my professional career in. Additionally, it taught me that work does not have to be boring or monotonous, rather, it can be exciting and engaging. With this knowledge, I will never settle in a job that is not dynamic, now that I know work can be fluid and meaningful. I also had a fantastic work-life balance this summer. With this, I learned that my passions and interests do not need to be subdued during my professional career, rather, they can be further explored! Finally, I learned that I do not have to put a ceiling on my expectations for my career. I never thought I would have an opportunity to work for such a great company but now, after having seen that I can do excellent work for a respected company, I will not sacrifice my expectations or sell myself short

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