Jason Damon reports on His Internship

This past summer, I was blessed to serve as an intern for the Knights of Columbus Office of Public Policy. It was an amazing experience, and one that I’m very grateful for.

As a Policy Intern, my job was actually pretty varied. There was a larger project I worked on for about half my time, I was able to meet with legislatures to discuss various issues and bills, and I was given a lot of freedom to attend different lectures and luncheons hosted around the capital.

I was told by my coworkers that things really slow down in the summer; I can’t imagine what it looks like outside of it then! Being in the middle of all the action was incredible, and for me at least it was pretty constant. I both lived and worked in Brookland, which is in the Northeast section of the city, but went to the Capital at least once a week to meet with legislatures or other groups and to formulate responses to issues that had recently arisen. I worked at the Pope St. John Paul II National Shrine, which was cool in and of itself since they were putting the finishing touches on a new exhibit on his life and teachings; I was able to even give a little of my input on the inspiring display, which was completed shortly before I left. I recommend that anyone going to the area check it out, regardless of personal faith because the man had such a huge influence on our world even today. On the weekends I traveled around the city a lot and frequented places like the National Mall and Old Town. The entire experience was amazing and being a political science and history major, I really got a lot out of residing in the center of American politics (I almost quite literally bumped elbows with Senators Marco Rubio, Roy Blount and Tim Scott and personally met and talked with Senator Bob Casey among other politicians and interest group leaders) and a place with so much history.

My internship was truly life-changing; I got to see the inner workings of the political process as well as meet a lot of fascinating people. I still keep in touch with my coworkers and keep an eye on political events that I may, in my own (very) small way, have influenced.