15 Ways To Stand Out as an Intern

Taking an internship can seem intimidating. To be one of the youngest and most inexperienced employees is overwhelming at any local business, let alone in our nation's capital. But don't let your worries get the best of you! An internship is a great way to learn, network and build your resume by getting first-hand experience.

Whether you are interning in DC or in Salt Lake with the Legislature, you can use some of the same strategies to be successful. Business Insider published a wonderful article about ways you can stand out as an intern. To read it, Click here!

Intern Spotlight: Caleb Carroll

Meet Caleb Carroll.

• Major: Political Science
• Hometown: Evanston, Wyoming
• Playing on His iPod Right Now: Hello, by Adele
• Favorite Movie Quote: "I believe there's a hero in all of us." - Aunt May, Spider-Man 2
• Intern For: Senator John Barrasso

IOGP: What has been the highlight of your internship?

CC: I actually work here indefinitely now. My internship lasted for about four weeks, at which point in time Senator Barrasso recommended me for a position on the Indian Affairs Committee. I applied for it and actually got the job. So the highlight would be getting an actual job from my internship. There are other highlights as well like getting to see a lot of people that have ran for president, or are running for president, you get to go to lots of galas and receptions, and DC is just a really cool place to live.

 

IOGP: What do you like most about DC?

CC: My favorite thing about DC is probably all the activities that there are to do here. A couple weeks ago, they did a movie in the park, we've gone to a food festival, we've gone to the beach and there are all the monuments you can go to. For Halloween, we trick or treated on Embassy Row and went to a party in the woods with a whole bunch of people. There are so many things to do and people to see.

                                                                                On Halloween

IOGP: What is it like working for Senator Barrasso? Have you been able to interact with him?

CC: I saw Senator Barrasso almost every day he was in the office. He is a great guy, and working with his staff was really nice. There were only two of us, two interns, in his office, so we got to do lots of different things. He gave me a present just the other day. Working with Senator Barrasso is fantastic.

IOGP: What are your plans post internship?

CC: This job is a stepping stone. I still have grad school that I definitely want to go. I am either going to go to law school or get my Master's in Business. I haven't decided yet. This is a good launching point, a good way to get my name out there. I get to meet a lot of different people that will definitely help me in my future endeavors. This is my starting point for future jobs.

IOGP: Any recommended sights to see in DC?

CC: 

• Capitol Hill, obviously. But if you are an intern out here, you're going to see that regardless.
• Dupont Circle, they've got lots of cool shops
• Lincoln Monument
• Jefferson Monument
• U Street, there are lots of cool clubs where you can go dancing, and I really enjoy that

IOGP: What advice would you give to current students thinking of a political internship? 

CC: I would say, do it! I was offered an internship last year in Senator Hatch's office, but I turned it down. But then I got out here and it's absolutely fantastic. So just do it! Other than that, I would say save your money. There's a lot of fun stuff to do, so you'll want to come out here with a bit of pocket change. Learn your major political figures, and the rest of the stuff you can't learn in school. They'll teach you here, and you'll learn as you go.

Why Local Government Matters

On Oct. 29, the Institute of Government and Politics held a panel discussion called, "Why Local Government Matters." 

Panel members included State Senator Lyle Hillyard, Bountiful City Manager Gary Hill and Logan City Mayor Craig Petersen. These three men discussed the importance of state and local politics and the influence your involvement can bring to your community.

In case you missed it, here are a few of the things they talked about at the event. 

       From left to right seated at the table: Bountiful City Manager Gary Hill, 

Logan City Mayor Craig Petersen, State Senator Lyle Hillyard

On Low Voter Turnout in Local Elections:

Mayor Petersen: Here in Cache Valley, there are a number of communities who have cancelled their elections. This is because the law doesn’t require an election to be held when there aren’t more candidates than there are open seats. In Logan, we have three seats available on the city council and four candidates, and so we will have the election. However, since it is only this single race on the ballot, people are less likely to come vote. The fact that they are non-partisan elections means that parties aren’t involved in getting out voters; it’s the individual candidates that have to do that. Those are maybe a couple of reasons for low turn outs.

Senator Hillyard: I know a lot of people who would be good legislators, who simply say, ‘I wouldn’t go through the process. I don’t want to pay the money.’ I think that turns people off in voting. The strategy gets almost to be, ‘I know my hardcore people are going to vote for me, there will be hardcore people to vote for the other side. I just want to get the middle people not to vote. So I’m going to say as many bad things as I can about Mitt Romney, or as many bad things about President Obama.’ I heard a saying once that it doesn’t matter whether you get bit by the dog or the cat. People look at the election and say, ‘It doesn’t matter if I like the Republicans or the Democrats, it’ll all end up the same.’ And they end up not voting. That’s really a sad commentary about our election process.

Gary Hill: I think that people don’t appreciate necessarily how impactful the local government is to your day to day life. I think if people appreciated how much your city and your county do and affect your life on a daily basis, they might be a little more interested. Sometimes there is no controversy and no voter turnout because people are just pretty happy with the way things are going.

On Zoning and Planning for Population Growth:

Gary Hill: You have to take the time to plan well. Your master plan should outline what areas of town you want to have homes, what areas of town you want to have commercial development, how you are going to get people to and from those, how wide your roads are, and what you are doing for trails and parks. The planning is the first step. The second piece of that is don’t get behind on your infrastructure. If you get behind the curve, and you don’t start replacing your infrastructure as you need to, you are just going to have to pay much more later. It costs about 10 times as much to replace a road as it does to maintain it. It’s extremely expensive. You also have a policy decision to make about new growth. Do you put that burden on the existing taxpayers, or do you put that burden on the people who are demanding the growth? In other words, who pays for it? There’s a very big mix of what you can do, but it starts with planning.

Mayor Petersen:  Growth depends on the nature of the city. Logan City doesn’t have a large amount of area within our city limit to expand. So our likely growth over the next 30 years isn’t going to be as rapid as it might be in North Logan or some of the other communities. So the planning for growth really has to be considered in light of what your capacity for growth is.

Senator Hillyard: A number of years ago, there was a push in the state that we would have state planning for all of this. The threats got so heavy to the legislature that we had to make sure we had guards at the doors. People were so concerned that the state was going to plan it, and thought it should be left to the counties. So no one has ever dared even talk about that anymore.

Advice to Students Wanting to Get Involved in Local Politics:

Senator Hillyard: On the local level, candidates don’t run by political party. So if you want to get involved, what you need to do is pick a candidate and go say, ‘I’d like to help you, what can I do?’ There is plenty of good work for volunteers to do and it’ll get you the type of information and knowledge you’ll need if you want to run yourself.

Gary Hill: I would suggest, at the local level, go in and talk to your mayor. The mayors would love to tell you some of the things that might be interesting to you. At the legislature, I would strongly suggest that you find a bill at the beginning of the session on a topic that is of interest to you and just follow what happens. Call the bill sponsor and talk to them. They are so accessible. You will learn so much about the legislative process.

Mayor Petersen: If you’ve never been to City Council meetings, it is an interesting process. You ought to see a little bit about how the system works. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it really is designed to get people’s input and to be transparent. 

Former Interns on the Value of Internships

If you need any convincing that doing an internship is a good idea, look no further. These former interns tell you why internships are a great addition to your resume.

The Best Restaurants in Washington - On a College Budget

One of the best parts about doing an internship in Washington D.C. is getting to live there! Our interns have reported that the Washington D.C. experience is unlike anything else.

While you're there, you will get to try some fantastic food. Whether you prefer Cuban, Japanese, Mexican, Ethiopian, Italian, Thai, or Persian cuisine, there is something for everyone in this city! But where should you start?

Washingtonian posted a list of The 25 Best Inexpensive Restaurants in Washington. Check it out by clicking here!

Which restaurant sounds the best to you?

For our alumni:

• Have you been to any on the list? 
• Do you agree with their choices?
• Which places would you add?

Let us know in the comments below!

Alumni Spotlight: Kirsten Rappleye, Assistant to the Utah Senate Majority Caucus

Kirsten Rappleye is a Utah State alumni, and the current Assistant to the Utah Senate Majority Caucus. She graduated in 2012, with a degree in Law and Constitutional Studies. As a student, she was the USUSA Student Advocate.  

IOGP: What do you do in your career today?

KR: Currently, I assist the majority caucus. Caucus meetings are held pretty regularly during the session and throughout the year. I work to do the organization for that, it’s mostly administrative honestly. I spend most of my time on the communications side of things. I do public relations and media relations. I spend a lot of my time, especially during the session, helping senators with their media contacts. I also do social media, and during the session I have a couple of communications interns who help me with that too. It really depends on the day. I do a lot of writing, a little bit of YouTube video creating and during the session I do pretty much every press conference the Senate does. The sky is the limit, we do everything around here.

                                         Kirsten and Stew Morrill, 2015

 IOGP: How did your internships help prepare you for your career?

KR: The internship is the reason why I’m here, to be honest with you. I don’t think I would have been interested in working in government, at least not in this capacity, had I not participated in the internship. You kind of fall in love with the atmosphere, the people and the fact that you’re helping to get things that really matter done while you’re an intern. I ended up here because the Chief of Staff over in the Senate, who I had kind of become friends with through my internship even though I was on the House side, was short a staffer for the 2012 session. He needed somebody who could kind of jump in quickly, on a moment’s notice, to help him out with the communications side of things for that session. Since I had interned twice, and we had loosely kept in contact, he knew that I was prepared to just jump right back in.

It prepared me for this career in the networking that was available. It prepared me for the career in that it helped me to understand that there is good in government still. There are actually people here who really are honestly just working to make a difference. I don’t have that stigma of what a politician is that a lot of people do. That’s not without exception of course.

The internship helped me to realize a lot of things about myself that I didn’t know before. It helped me to develop my own political opinions a little bit more and to learn how to be a better researcher. I was definitely a better student too, as a result of having been here.

                                                                      Kirsten and the 2015 Interns

IOGP: Who did you intern for?

KR:  The first time I interned with the legislature, I actually did it twice, was the 2008 session. I interned for my dad, Representative Frank, and then Representative Brad Winn. The second time I interned was the 2009 general session. That was my freshman year up at Utah State. I interned as a policy analyst for the conservative caucus, which was a group of 30, plus or minus, legislators who got together a couple times a week during the session to discuss different policy issues and work on projects together. It was a little bit of a different experience the second time around, but I kind of couldn’t get enough the first time, so I was happy to be invited back. I also interned in the summer of 2011 with Mike Lee’s office out in D.C.

                             From Kirsten's 2008 internship

IOGP: What were some of the highlights of your internships?

KR: The 2008 session was really awesome because I got to experience, for the first time really, firsthand what the legislative process is actually like. In the news, you read about the political side of things and interns who come here, years before me and years after me, all get to understand and watch the actual legislative process in an up close and personal way. In a textbook, for example, you can read about the committee process and things like that, but watching it was awesome. It made me fall in love with state-level politics.

Other things I loved about the legislative internship were the people that I got to work with. That was seven years ago, and I still actually regularly interact with a lot of the people who I interned with back then. Many of them are currently working in Utah political offices.

                                                            From Kirsten's 2008 internship

IOGP: What are some of the advantages of being an intern in Salt Lake with the state legislature?

KR: I’ll tell you what, if I had to pick looking back, while I loved my D.C. experience and it is completely unlike anything I’ve ever done, the value of the learning that you get in the legislative internship is actually higher. You’re kind of the chief of staff to the person who you’re working for because the legislative staff here is really small. Even right now we have 29 senators and something like nine full-time people. For us who work here now, we can’t even wait for the interns to get here and help the senators and help the representatives because they need it.

 Interns get to be part of policy discussions. There have been multiple times when different legislators have asked interns, “What do you think about this?” While interns shouldn’t express their opinions, and that’s actually looked down upon, it’s a really good chance for them to get to dialogue regularly and be relied upon by the legislator they work for.

I hear it all the time that D.C. interns get to interact maybe once or twice with the member that they are working for. Here, personal relationships are insane. As a staff member I grow strange attachments to the interns that work here. We stay in contact with them, and they come up and visit.

                                                                    Kirsten with the 2008 Interns

 IOGP: What is the role of interns during each legislative session?

KR: I can only speak for the Senate side, really, on that. I don’t know exactly how the House uses their interns these days. For us, we go through quite a process to match interns to Senators prior to the session. We spend a lot of time trying to make the right matches because different Senators use their interns in different ways. For example, a USU intern, Justine Larsen, was the Senate President’s intern two years ago. When we interviewed her, it was very clear that she was very good with research. She’d had a lot of experience there. Her manner was pleasant, quiet, and respectful, but confident. Once we got to know her, it was very apparent that she was a very good candidate to be the Senate President’s intern, because that’s the kind of person he needs.

The Senate President would use his intern for things like making sure his meetings go on schedule, keeping his schedule during the session, a lot of policy research and sitting in on meetings on his behalf. Other Senators use their interns to help them with their social media.

We keep our interns really, really busy. They are a really integral part of the process for us. I don’t know how the session would go without our interns, but I don’t like to imagine it because it would be something of a nightmare. I can’t even tell you how many times I have heard from Senators how important their interns are to them during that time. Many of them stay in touch with their interns for years to come.

                                                                                 Media Conference, 2014

IOGP: What advice do you have for students considering a legislative internship?

KR: Just do it! I know for a lot of people it is inconvenient to take a semester off. I know that sometimes the drive doesn’t seem very good, or the arrangements as far as housing don’t seem awesome, but these internships really do change the course of people’s lives probably more often than not. So for anyone who has inhibitions about it or who doesn’t like the inconvenience that it could present, I would just say forget all that and do it. People don’t regret coming and spending time here. It ends up being something that they’ll treasure for the rest of their lives. There is a legislator here for every type of intern.

IOGP Profile: Jon Cox, Communications Director for Gov. Herbert

A Political Career: Jon Cox

Jon Cox, the director of communications for Gov. Gary Herbert, will speak to Utah State University students on Sept.10 about his career in politics, and how students can best pursue their own career. He will speak at 5:30 p.m. in Old Main 304.

Jon, 32, and his wife, Ellie, have three girls — all of which were born or adopted within a seven-month period. The two oldest girls, Epuri (7) and Nawook (5) were adopted from Uganda, where Ellie had previously founded an orphanage. The youngest girl, Eva, is 2-years-old.

Jon graduated from USU in 2006 with a degree in journalism and a minor in accounting. He also has a Master’s degree in history from the University of Utah. He was appointed as Gov. Herbert’s Director of Communications earlier this summer. Prior to that, he served as a member of the Utah House of Representatives.

Prior to his visit to campus, Jon answered questions via email for the IOGP.

IOGP: Can you explain your current position? 

JC: As the Director of Communications, I am a member of the governor's senior leadership team. In addition to serving as the governor's spokesman, I help craft all communications from the governor's office to the media. We also help oversee the communications of all state agencies with the media. 

IOGP: What has been the most surprising and/or difficult challenge about being the spokesperson? 

JC: I previously served as a county commissioner and state representative here in the state. Having won three different elections, I am used to speaking on-the-record and under pressure. The main difference is that then I was a free agent, and now I'm not. It's easy speaking for yourself, but making sure that your comments directly align with someone else (while still maintaining your personality) takes some work. 

IOGP: What do you enjoy most about being the spokesperson?

JC: I am a long view kind of person, and so strategy is what I enjoy most about my job. I like to think through various scenarios of how an issue could play out over time. Maybe it's still the historian in me, but if journalism really is the rough draft of history, I want to make sure I keep the day-to-day events of a news cycle in proportion. 

Photo Cred: "Governor Appoints Jon Cox to
Utah House" by KCSG.com"

IOGP: You were considered a rising star in the Legislature and had enough experience to make a move into major leadership roles. Why did you decide to leave the Legislature for the governor's office?

JC: I think most everyone in the Legislature assumes they are a rising star, so I suppose you never really know until the votes are cast in a leadership race. I loved my time in the Legislature, and I will always treasure the friendships that I made during those two years. But in the Legislature, I was 1 of 104. Now, with a handful of others, I get to be in the room with the governor when he makes major decisions. I'm guessing it must be the inner athlete in him, but Governor Herbert is very open to a competition of ideas among his senior staff. He encourages alternative viewpoints and appreciates being challenged. I have found that type of setting to be incredibly fulfilling as he makes critical decisions for Utah's future. 

IOGP: You served an internship with former U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, while at USU. How did your political internship help you in your political career?

JC: It opened up my eyes to the world of politics and led me directly into a four-year stint as a staff member for Senator Bennett. Without that internship opportunity from USU, I would have never pursued that path and likely not become involved in politics so early in life. 

IOGP: What advice would you give a college student considering a career in politics?

JC: Read. Politics is primarily a competition of ideas, and if you don't have many ideas you won't get very far in the field. The big, foundational ideas in my life that have motivated and guided me have almost always come from a book--usually one I read without being assigned by a teacher to do so. If you tell yourself that you'll begin reading recreationally once you finish a difficult semester, then don't be surprised when that day never comes. Difficult semesters turn into difficult jobs, which turn into marriages (hopefully not as difficult) and kids (definitely difficult). Having three kids in less than a year, I'm probably not the best resource for parenting tips — but I will say that reading has remained a priority for me even in the busiest of times because it was a priority for me way back in college. 

IOGP: What is your favorite memory from your time at USU? 

JC: We spent a lot of time playing practical jokes on each other back then. One of our favorites took place in the old Merrill Library. We would find a book with an embarrassing title and place it in a friend's backpack. When that friend would walk out of the library the alarm would go off, and they would have to explain to the library staff why they were trying to sneak out a book entitled, "Raging Hormones: Do They Control Our Lives?" A decade after the fact, I hope the USU librarians will accept my belated apology.

IOGP: Anything else you want to add?

JC: I loved my time at Utah State. Over the years — and especially as a college professor — I have tried my best to remember what life was like as a college student. Trying to sort through several major life decisions all at the same time can be a little overwhelming, but life as a college student is also a time of such excitement and possibility. You only get to be a college student once, and I believe I absolutely made the most of it. 

Interviewed by Josh Loftin.