Weeks 10 & 11
My internship with GC continues to be a great experience. In addition to my usual assignments, I have the opportunity to attend brown bag lunches with USAID mission directors where they share stories of challenges and successes at particular missions around the world. Being able to hear the development implementation challenges first hand from the people in charge has been extremely rewarding and significantly increased my understanding of international development from an American perspective. Additionally, I had the chance to sit down with an attorney in the Office of the Inspector General and he shared what a career in the Inspector General community really looks like. These kinds of things happen on a weekly basis at USAID, and I am absolutely thrilled with the experience and the kindness that everyone agency-wide continues to show the interns.
In the same vein, Administrator Mark Green and Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick took the time to host all of USAID’s interns for a final send off. Both of them offered substantial career advice, and the Administrator told some of his most interesting stories from a career in public service.
On a separate personal note, the article I wrote while in Indonesia last summer has officially been published in the Election Law Journal. The link to the article is available here. The Indonesian scholars and co-authors I worked with graciously paid the open access fee, so the article is available to anyone. We set a goal to get the article published in a Q1 level journal, and we were fortunate enough to have that happen. As I have said in past blogs, I am extremely grateful to William & Mary and Professor Warren for this opportunity. I hope that this publication will help bring some attention and change to the ongoing election issues in Indonesia.