Stipends recipient Rebecca Mehra talks about her summer experience:
This summer I interned at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. at the Office of Pakistan Affairs. My undergraduate major was International Relations, and my graduate program is in Communications, so this was a fantastic opportunity to put my degrees into practice.
At the Office of Pakistan Affairs I had the unique opportunity to see foreign policy created firsthand. I worked primarily with the political-military and economic teams in the office to create official-informal releases (inter-organizational updates), notecards for high-level officials such as Ambassador Richard Olson, and issue papers. Furthermore, I facilitated and participated in meetings between the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, other U.S. government agencies, and the Pakistani government.
Perhaps the greatest experience I had was to see firsthand the work of foreign service officers, as I will be taking the foreign service exam in October. I worked as control officer for the incoming Consul General to Karachi, Pakistan, planned her entire Washington, D.C. schedule, and escorted her to all her meetings. I also had the opportunity to work with many different bureaus within the State Department, as well as coordinate with other government agencies like Defense, Treasury, and the National Security Council.
