My Washington, DC, Internship
This past week of work has been exciting. Another intern—Lexxi—and I are creating an exhibit about the importance of the history of physics to be installed in the Niels Bohr Library & Archives. We finished all the work for the exhibit on Monday, now we just have to install it. Lexxi and I met with our mentor to discuss the next steps for the project. We had been knocking around ideas for social media and outreach projects. Our mentor loved some of our ideas, so Lexxi is now working on a series of newsletters to send out to SPS students and I am making a series of videos related to our exhibit. We will also work on an article to be released in The SPS Observer. I have never worked on a project this varied. On Thursday, as an intern group, we toured Capitol Hill. We started the morning out by going to a subcommittee hearing on in-space propulsion. At that hearing, we were recognized by Congressman Ami Bera as being the future of science. He had us stand, and we were recognized by the whole room. I have done quite a few cool things in my life, including watching lava flow into the ocean from less than 100 feet away, and I can honestly say that this was the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. It was so encouraging and awe-inspiring. I was literally speechless for minutes afterward (and I talk a lot).
I am originally from the Sacramento area, in Rep. Bera’s district, and I remember when he was elected. To see that we as human beings, as future scientists, could influence the policies that govern our world was eye-opening. It is hard to quantify the experience of being on Capitol Hill—it’s like democracy is alive and there is so much possibility for change.
As you can imagine, it was hard to beat a Thursday like that, but on Friday we got to install our exhibit! I honestly thought it would only take a few hours to install, but it took all day. I am beyond happy that the exhibit is installed. It feels good to have our hard work on display and it looks awesome! You can check it out below!
This article was originally published as a blog post at https:// www.spsnational.org/programs/internships/blog/week-5- installing. It has been lightly edited for publication.
