Academics > Majors and Areas of Study > History > Travel > Danielle Hillwig: Washington, DC

Danielle Hillwig is taking part in Thiel's Semester in Washington during the Fall 2009. The Semester in Washington is a supervised internship and seminar program. It is conducted by the Lutheran Colleges' Washington Consortium and provides internship experiences in the governmental, public service or private sectors.

Danielle is interning with the Republican National Committee.

Daniell has shared her journal that was part of her Semester in Washington program. The most recent entries arre first.

12/10/2009

On Tuesday, I was given the opportunity, along with eight other interns to attend the Republican National Committee’s Christmas Party. There are approximately forty interns who work in the building, but our coordinator picked the interns that were recommended who could handle the stresses of helping out. It was absolutely amazing and a privilege to attend. The chairman, Michael Steele was very kind and even mingled with the interns a little bit.  I even got my picture taken with him!  After that first hour of working I was able to mingle with my fellow interns and coworkers. My fellow interns and myself met up with friends following the party to mingle and share stories. I am still in shock that I was able to attend this party. On Sunday night I had my final for my Political Communications class. I had to turn in 3 different papers, so I had been pretty stressed up until that and tonight I just finished my Public Relations Final. My internship has wound down pretty much with our work. I was given a few minor projects that required me to do some research of presidential politics and elections, but it has been fairly quiet at work. I am really going to miss my intern friends, especially Krysta, Michael and Emily. I am also really going to miss my bosses! They have been very good to me and they have helped me learn a lot from this experience. It scares me that tomorrow is my last day. I have absolutely no idea what I will do with myself when I arrive back home in Pennsylvania. We had an intern luncheon today and we were all joking and laughing, but eventually crying. It is extremely difficult to leave so many people that have grown so close to my heart. I hope and I pray that they will stay in my life one way or another, but I do recognize how difficult maintaining this many friendships at a distance will be. I plan to do anything within my power to end up in DC and I know that many of my new friends do too. Hopefully we will all have the opportunity to do so and that we will be reunited. I have been reflected on all of my wonderful experiences, such as the Value Voters Summit, my internship at the RNC, the Congressional Awards Poker Tournament, and the fun times with friends and I am extremely sad to leave. Despite these feelings, I am very excited to return to Thiel and see all of my friends and professors.

12/03/2009

I am pleased to say that myself, and my fellow interns FINALLY finished our briefing project. We are helping each other do some minor edits, but the majority of the work is finished and ready to be presented to the RPCs so that they can add to them and make edits. I am truly proud of everything that I have accomplished at the RNC and the friends that I have made so far are unforgettable. I am never going to forget the moments that my fellow interns and I have had. When I look back on this experience I will remember having the world’s most silly conversations in the Longworth Cafeteria. Eating lunch while sitting in the fountain near the Congressional Buildings and typing emails to Krysta joking about our lives. My internship provided me with many friends and a lot of knowledge and I truly feel prepared for whatever I do upon graduation.

12/01/2009

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and I did a lot of enjoyable things over break. My sister and I had a lot of fun together and bonded a lot. I am going to miss things like this about home, but I have been realizing that I am destined to be somewhere else, where my gifts and talents will be utilized more. Prior to coming to DC I felt like I truly belonged at home and I was doing everything within my power to stay as close to Chicora, Pennsylvania as possible. I chose to go to Thiel, which is very close to my home. I started school as a history secondary education major with the hopes of obtaining a job close to home, and once I dropped that I decided that I would attend Clarion University to obtain a degree in Library Sciences in order to become a librarian, a career path in which I was also considering in order to stay close to my home. DC has made me realize that my talents may not fit into the scheme of a small town and that I should attempt to expand myself because of my experiences. Coming back to rural Pennsylvania and Thiel College is going to be very difficult for me. Washington introduced me to so many interesting people, sights, sounds and flavors. I am somewhat confused at what to do, but I do know that whatever I do in life that I do need to branch out and spend some time away from my home town.

11/12/2009

Yesterday was a very different day for me. It was Veterans Day, but our program chose to take a field trip to the National Islamic Center. Initially, I was very upset with this decision, as I felt that we should be attending ceremonies at Arlington and I still feel that we should have been doing so, but I did learn a lot at the Islamic Center. Prior to attending this briefing I felt that the Muslim religion was demeaning to women and I did not truly understand it. I still do not truly understand the religion, but the hospitality that the individuals who were worshiping gave us helped me to gain a new perspective of the religion. They would explain what their prayers meant in English to us so that we understood the service and gave us a brief description of their religion. Prior to visiting the Islam Center I was able to go on the most amazing field trip to C-SPAN! We were given the opportunity to look at the studio and we were given an insight on how the filming occurs and how they make documentaries. It has been absolutely crazy at work lately! 11/19/2009

Yesterday I was finally able to go to the Whitehouse! It made me so happy because I have been scheduled to visit twice and both times was unable to do so because of security reasons. Everything was absolutely beautiful, and Krysta and I joked around a lot about how we were both going to be spending a lot of time there in the future! I wish that we would have been able to see it decorated for Christmas though. We went to the National Archives following our trip to the Whitehouse.  I had already been to the Archives several times, but it is still very moving to see the Constitution no matter how many times you have seen it before. Work has exciting. It is really nice to have all of our team back from being deployed for the elections. The office was so quiet and somewhat boring without them there. We have been working on these projects called state briefings for the Regional Political Coordinators for quite a while and we are getting to a point in our work where we are beginning to stress. I have been taking my work home so that I can get it done, because I do not want to hurt the group.

11/5/2009

This was an especially interesting week in DC. My internship has gotten pretty exciting due to the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, along with the other elections that are going on, but all of that stress has been lifted thanks to the victories the GOP were able to achieve in these states.  The atmosphere has been amazing at the RNC, and there has been a lot of extra food for us all to snack on! On Sunday, Krysta, Andy, and myself all did work for Bob McDonnell’s campaign. It rained ALL day and we had to do literature drops in the pouring rain and then we phone banked into the evening. Krysta and I led the volunteers on our bus and were in charge of making sure everyone in our group was where they were supposed to be. We were there from 8am to 9pm working and everyone there was cold and wet. The majority of people that we were working with were absolutely amazing to deal with and they made the day a lot better, but one man was absolutely awful and mean to everyone.  He was supposed to be in charge, so I told my supervisor at the RNC and she said that she has heard a lot of complaints about the same guy. I have also been phone banking for the VA and NJ gubernatorial races every Monday night. On Mondays, up until this week, I have had to stay at the RNC from 9am until 9pm.  I am super glad that it is all over and that everything worked out great for the Republican Party.  Yesterday we had an amazing field trip! We went to the Supreme Court. I have been really anticipating this trip for a while. The only thing that I want to do more than this in DC is to get a tour of the White House. Whitney, Matt and myself went earlier in the semester to the gardens tour, which was amazing, but we did not get to go inside.

10/29/2009

Today was a really good day. We are still working on state briefings at work, which are kind of stressful. I am really hoping for a job down in DC someday! Tonight my Public Relations class met at the Sewall-Belmont. We get to see Helen Thomas speak about her new book! I was so excited to see Helen! My friends and myself who work on the Hill all went to eat dinner at Tortilla Coast, the Mexican restaurant we have come to enjoy quite a bit before we went to see Helen. The walk to the Sewall-Belmont House was pretty short from where we were. It was really convenient. Once we got there, we sat down to enjoy Helen’s presentation. She was a really spunky woman and enjoyable to hear speak. She made a lot of jokes, but she was very sharp and knew exactly what she was talking about. The only thing I regret about tonight is not buying Helen’s book and getting her autograph! Yesterday was really enjoyable too. We went to the International Spy Museum and listened to a speaker who worked for NCIS. He was really interesting. The Spy Museum has been my favorite field trip thus far! I really enjoyed the section entitled “Secret History of History.” It showed different historical events and how spies were involved in them, and even though I know that the portion of the museum where individuals could crawl above the ducts was directed towards children, I admit that I thought it was a lot of fun.

10/26/2009

My family ended up visiting this weekend! We just relaxed because my sister was feeling somewhat sick. Her soccer team had just lost against their rivals, but most of the team had just recovered from the swine flu. It made me feel a lot better to see them though. We first went out to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner for Erica’s birthday. It was so fun! The chef was really silly, especially to Erica since it was her birthday. We then took Erica to the mall to pick out a birthday gift. She eventually decided on buying a new coat. She got a Northface jacket. I am really jealous. It looks so nice, warm and toasty. Then we got a birthday cake and went to my aunt’s place to eat. I stayed with my family at their hotel because my roommate Whitney has swine flu. I am extremely worried about her. It was convenient that my family was down here so that I didn’t have to stay in someone else’s’ apartment.  I am so happy they were able to come. I missed them so much! I only wish that Whitney felt better! I wanted to bring my sister back to my apartment so that she could spend the night and meet all of my friends, but I wouldn’t want to make Whitney even less comfortable than she already is. My mother and I went to Whole Foods and bought some supplements for Mollie and I to take to prevent the flu and some things for Whitney so that hopefully she gets back to being herself quicker.

10/22/2009

Yesterday was a very interesting day. We went to a briefing on US Counterterrorism at the State Department. It was amazing! The speaker was so knowledgeable and shared a lot of information with us, that although it was outdated, it was still very shocking and kind of scared me. Monday was also a great day. Several of the interns were able to have lunch with Gentry \, who is the director of the political division at the RNC. Gentry is so knowledgeable and despite of the fact that he is very young for the position he has is very impressive. Gentry has worked for a lot of campaigns in Iowa and has been successful in everything he has done politically. It was very exciting for myself, and my fellow interns, Michael, Emily, and Luke to get to speak to Gentry. He allowed us to do a question forum with him and answered a lot of things for us. We were able to ask him questions about his success while getting his suggestions and ideas for us about our own futures. I had never really considered a law degree before coming to DC, but based on everything that I have experienced so far, along with the advice I received from Gentry, I am beginning to realize that law school definitely is not for me. Overall, I am pretty confused about my future, but maybe if I am able to do something of value on a campaign it will help me decide where and if I want to go to graduate school. I will be honest…I am really starting to miss my family. My little sister was just announced as being on her high school homecoming court and she was accepted into her first choice college all in the same week. I am really enjoying my experience in DC so far, but I can’t help but feel that I am missing out on a lot of her life. With her birthday coming up, I hope I can get her something nice or do something that she will like. It did make me feel a lot better that my family sent me a package this week. It had some things from home in it and made me feel a little better.

10/18/2009

Today my roommate Whitney, Matt and I went on the Whitehouse gardens tour. We caught it in the very last fifteen minutes that it was open and had to run through the tour pretty quickly. We were able to see The Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, The Rose Gardens and we even saw Sasha and Malia’s playground! I couldn’t help but think how tempting it would be for a child going on the tour to want to play on it, because it was so amazing! We got our picture taken in front of the Whitehouse, but we had to hurry out due to the fact that we only had fifteen minutes for the tour. We were unable to see the Children’s Garden up close, but we did get a little peak at it. I really hope that we have a tour of the Whitehouse later in the semester, because I would love to see the inside of it! Earlier Today, the Steelers beat the Browns, so it was an extremely enjoyable day!  

10/15/2009

Yesterday the LCWS program went on a tour of the Pentagon. It was kind of disappointing, but I guess that could have been expected. I expected to see a lot more, but the tour just showcased different art pieces, medals and medallions. Our tour guides were humorous and good looking, but I still expected the tour to be a little bit more substantial. Work has been very busy lately. We have been working on various smaller projects and doing a lot of research in order to help the Regional Political Directors complete their work on time.  Preparing for the gubernatorial elections has required that they do a lot of work and they will be deploying to New Jersey and Virginia soon to help coordinate Victory efforts. We are also phone banking a lot. I feel exhausted all of the time! I have been staying from 9am to 9pm at work every Monday for quite a while now and it has me extremely tired. It is upsetting that some of the other interns are not taking the fact that we were asked to help phone bank seriously, but the majority of us are working very hard and that our efforts will pay off.

10/06/2009

My internship is going very well. I have noticed that many of the callers whose concerns I take own tended to be the same people. One specific woman named Becky, is even asking for me by name when she calls the RNC! I really enjoy answering the phones and hearing what people have to say. Many of these people have such different perspectives and ideas than me and it is intriguing to hear their thoughts. There are some very crazy people that call though and it scares me a little bit at times, but sometimes is hard for me not to laugh when I hear people like this calling in. I am really starting to get to know my fellow interns pretty well. One girl, Emily Tocknell, who goes to the University of Maryland and I have discovered that we are like twins! We have so much in common and we are becoming very close friends. We help each other out a lot at work and assist each other when we have projects.

Today I toured North Street Village with the other LCWS students. North Street Village is a women’s shelter located Lutherplace memorial Church. Our tourguide, Katie explained a lot to us about the shelter, but many classes and meetings were going on during our tour. The shelter overall, impressed me a lot. When I first learned that we were going to be visiting a homeless shelter in the inner city I was somewhat intimidated. My sister and I had served at soup kitchens before back home, in the small town environment and oftentimes, we would go home upset and disheartened by the conditions that many people were living in. North Street Village gave me a different perspective of shelters and the homeless.  When I first arrived in North Street Village it appeared to be a typical homeless shelter. However, we were able to meet several residents, mostly older women. They described their experiences at N street and they said how individualized it is and how well they were treated. Upon further touring the shelter we realized exactly how different and unique it was. The women who are residents there receive opportunities to attend classes, such as art, music and self expression courses. They also receive dental and healthcare, and even chiropractic care! Katie told us that there are several very kind doctors in the area that perform this work on the patients free of charge. I was very interested in what goes on at N Street Village, and it completely blew away my perceptions of what a homeless shelter was.

09/15/2009

I am just starting to get used to the DC lifestyle. My rommmates are very nice people and I really like my internship so far. Saturday, I went to the March on Washington protest. It was a lot of fun. I had to go for work and pass out literature and get people to sign up for our mailing list. I also have to write a paper covering the event.On Sunday, my roommates and I spent the day at Arlington Cemetary. I hope all is well at Thiel!

09/11/2009

Today Mollie, Whitney, Matt, Mike and I went to the Pentagon. It was very moving, but extremely sad. It is almost indescribable how the atmosphere made me feel. There were people praying and crying, a man playing a recorder like instrument and white roses placed nearly on every part of the monument. At work today, we all took time off to watch the President Obama lay a wreath at the Pentagon and I was able to see the exact spot only several hours later. It was a completely different experience for me to visit the Pentagon on 9/11 because being from rural Pennsylvania I suppose I had never truly experienced the reality of the tragedy.

09/09/2009

It was my first day at the RNC today! At first I’ll admit I was somewhat intimidated. Just waking up in the morning and getting ready was extremely intimidating to me. I wore a suit for one of the first times in my life! Then as we climbed into the metro the real fun started. Krysta, Mollie, Mike, Abby, Matt, Mark and myself, all went together since we were all going to the Capitol South metro stop. Krysta, Mike and I found out several days ago that we were all interning at the RNC and we all became fast friends. It is amazing that three of the interns at the RNC were all from the Lutheran College Washington Semester. Mike and I are even in the same division! He is also from Pennsylvania, and goes to Gettysburg College. Upon arriving we were first introduced to Gaye Galvin the internship coordinator whom we had been emailing for months to prepare for our internships. Then she took us on a tour of the building. It was amazing! Finally, Mike, myself, and another intern named Julie were all taken to the political division on the third floor of the building. We were promptly introduced to Susan Hepworth, our supervisor who was a very nice woman with red hair. She introduced us to some of the other individuals in the political division. All of the people we met were very young and surprisingly laid back! We quickly learned that being an intern in the RNC’s political division was an extremely fast paced job though. We were given a project right away that involved making a database. They assigned each intern different states and we would be continuing research done by employees that would be compiled into an easy to navigate database. We were then told to check the database for errors and check off each area we did once we were done. I feel very excited about this project. It is somewhat intimidating because of the fact that our mistakes are traceable and we are still learning what we are supposed to do.

09/07/2009

Today we had a Safety Briefing with Sergeant Bret Parson of the DC Metro Police and went on a bus tour of the city. The tour was exhausting!! Sergeant Parson was really helpful and funny though. He gave us tips on how to survive in the city, and even a few tips on how to react in situations where we felt that our safety was compromised. Following this briefing we then had a bus tour of the city! I was happy to see all of the sights, including some of which I had never before seen, such as the FDR memorial. Additionally, I enjoyed seeing embassy row. I was truly surprised at how small the embassies were and expected a lot more grandeur. This city is amazing and I am so excited to spend time here!

09/6/2009

It is my second day in DC today. I have never really been the type to record my thoughts on paper let alone keeping a regular journal, so I know that this assignment in itself will be difficult for me. I do realize how great of an opportunity that I am being offered though and do not want to risk ever forgetting my time in DC and I want to treasure it forever. My new apartment is in Rosslyn VA and I will be spending three months here. I am full of concern for these next three months and up until I arrived in DC I was starting to regret my decision to come here. I guess it is just because I am such a small town girl. My mom, dad and Aunt Kathy literally just left me here in Rosslyn a couple of hours ago and I already miss them.  Upon their leaving I decided to relax in my new apartment for a while since my roommates both went to breakfast either with their families or with friends from their home schools. I wasn’t able to relax at all though, so I went to explore and found the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial. The park where it is located is beautiful! AND there are so many places to run close by. I really enjoy watching the people at the memorial. It is very relaxing and I really enjoy trying to read the expressions and emotions of each individual as they approach the monument. Some of the older people seem very moved and I can only wish that I knew what memories are being rekindled. I also wonder what sights will bring feelings like that to me one day. The younger people, especially children seem to react very differently to the monument.  They seem more amazed with the size and importance of the monument than anything. I can’t wait to spend more time here and hopefully one of my roommates enjoys running!