Reflection 3: In-Person Personal Contributions Within the House of Representatives

The week of June 21-25, the fourth week of my internship, I had the opportunity to visit the office and complete my work in-person. Since prior to the internship beginning, I had been planning on visiting Washington, DC this week. However, upon learning this my supervisor suggested I try to come into the office. Naturally, being fully vaxxed, I jumped at the opportunity.

Being in the office changed many of my personal contributions throughout the week. For example, I gave a tour of the House buildings at the end of the week to some friends of my boss (the only tours allowed at the Capitol right now cannot go into the Capitol building and are generally for people connected to the Members in some compacity). This would have been impossible to do virtually and near impossible at the beginning of the week prior to learning my way around the buildings.

Additionally, I found myself more entuned to the office by being in-person this last week. I have had more opportunities to conduct research for the legislative staffers because it is easier for them to simply walk to the front desk and explain the bill/research they need then in is to put it into an email to send me, where things can be misconstrued.

Through conducting a tour and research, my personal contributions this week have left a larger impact on the overall service and legislative goals of the office than they have in the past. This is because through giving a tour I am able to have face to face contact with constituents, which is shown through political research has a larger impact on a perception of a political office than over the phone contact (which was my previous threshold for this internship). Additionally, the research I completed directly affects legislation that is looking to be introduced in the near future, rather than analyzing legislation already introduced by other Members, which, again, was my previous threshold for the internship.

Additionally, I have been able to secure my continued in-person presence in the office during the weeks Congress is in session because I have family in the DC area I can visit. So, I will be in-person this upcoming week and for the last two weeks in July. It will be interesting to see if I continue to think my personal contributions have a larger impact on the mission of the office when I am in-person versus when I am online after I have had more time to compare the two.