Strength in career development and a love for a new city is exactly what students like Grace DiCianni ’24 have found through The Washington Center (TWC) internship program.
TWC provides students with the opportunity to network, have real-world work experience and get a closer insight to the inner workings of our government, all while exploring the U.S. Capitol. The semester-long program welcomes students to live in furnished intern housing apartments while completing their internship, also offering a career readiness program and an academic course.
DiCianni, a criminal justice major, is a current intern at the Behavioral International Economic Development Society (BIED Society), which focuses on advising young individuals to become better international affair policy professionals. She also recently did a takeover on the TWC program’s Instagram.
“I was able to interview a special agent in the FBI, sit in a room with about 19 secret service agents, talk to congressmen and hear from a former CIA interrogations officer,” DiCianni said. “Without these opportunities, I wouldn’t have learned how important it is to ask the stupid questions, network and just talk to people as if they are other humans and not be intimidated by them.”
Patrick Runfola ’23 participated in TWC’s summer program where he also worked as a BIED Society intern. He had the opportunity to work in an environment where there were multiple different cohorts, which allowed him to see different perspectives and learn more about various topics related to his international relations major.
“There were different cohorts of people who were researching different things,” Runfola said. “You might have had people who are studying economic development, like Latin American politics, or someone like me, who was studying Asian Pacific security studies.”
Not only was this program a learning experience for Runfola, but it also gave him the opportunity to connect with others, which he would advise future participants to do.
“Don’t close yourself off to opportunities that might present themselves, talk to as many people as you can, get as many opinions about things as you can and put yourself out there,” Runfola said.
According to Lisa Baglione, Ph.D., faculty co-liaison of TWC at St. Joe’s, students also have the option to partake in shorter, week-long programs that pay for Pennsylvania residents as well as offer a $300 stipend.
“The amazing part about the January and May seminars is that the state of Pennsylvania will fund that completely,” Baglione said. “Students going who are PA residents are paying zero, in fact it’s better than that, they’re getting $300 in addition, so that’s really great, and it’s a great opportunity.”
Katherine A. Sibley, Ph.D., faculty co-liaison of TWC at St. Joe’s, believes the program has multiple benefits including setting up and securing a job postgraduation.
“The interesting thing about The Washington Center is that it really does set you on a path for some interesting work,” Sibley said. “A lot of our students go on to do the jobs at the place they’ve interned, or they find connections there … That’s a really, really positive attribute of it.”
For students who have the opportunity to go in person, another positive aspect is being at the country’s capital and seeing firsthand the inner workings of the U.S. government, according to Sibley.
“I think there’s just a sense of getting more connected with our country and our democracy,” Sibley said. “For some people, this might be a way of understanding a little bit closer to how Washington’s stamp is right on our country.”
DiCianni encourages students to take the leap, expand their career goals, get out of their comfort zones and apply for the program.
“If you’re on the fence of applying, just apply, because I always think about it like, I’m at St. Joe’s for four years. I’m going back to St. Joe’s in the fall, and I know I’m going back to the community,” DiCianni said. “So it’s like, what little thing can I do in my college career that will make me different from my peers?”
