Internships with the U.S. Department of State
When Josh Pila was a Political Science and Public Relations major at the University of Florida, he worked as a junior program officer with the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program, which brings high school students from Eurasia to the United States to study for an academic year.
Pila, who is hard of hearing, has some knowledge of what these foreign exchange students might be feeling. As a teenager Pila traveled on a cultural exchange to Israel, which later shaped his perspective as an intern at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) office that houses the FLEX program. “It was on my trip to Israel that I began to understand that it was individuals who drive international relations more than behemoth bureaucracies. That understanding came back as I worked in ECA with the FLEX program and helped facilitate a system of international cultural exchange that made a wide impact on a personal level for all the participants,” says Pila.
Pila’s intern experience involved working with grantee organizations, preparing information for the federal grants process, answering Freedom of Information Act requests, evaluating workshops and programs, contributing to public relations and conducting programming for FLEX students with and without disabilities.
The U.S. Department of State is committed to equal opportunity for all and encourages students with disabilities to apply for its internships and employment opportunities. Pila mentioned his disability at the outset to avoid potential problems arising later, and in doing so, he found the office was very understanding about his preference for e-mail over telephone correspondence and provided him with a headset to make it easier to talk on the telephone when needed. Pila thinks when video-conferencing becomes more cost-effective, it will make the field more accessible for all.
Pila, who is now in law school, still recalls vividly those face-to-face moments from his semester in the nation’s capital. “I had just finished [paperwork] and we had a visit from a group of FLEX students,” Pila remembers. “In that one moment, the paperwork linked to the human face, and I could see the effects of the American government’s [international] exchange programs and see the fruits of my labor, so to speak.”
The U.S. Department of State accepts applications for their fall, spring and summer Student Internship Program. Contact them for more information, deadlines, and how to apply.
