Julia Becker '05, currently pursuing a MPA at Cornell's Institute of Public Affairs, is just starting an internship at the State Department. She writes:
I am starting my second week at the State Department and so far it has been a great experience. I am working in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs in the Office of International Religious Freedom. Essentially what I am doing is acting as an editor for the Internation Religious Freedom Report, which by law must be submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Affairs Committee every September 1st. I have been assigned to work in the South and Central Asia team; I am editing the reports from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Essentially what happens is that the Human Rights officer from the embassy post in that country writes the report, detailing government restrictions and abuses of religious freedom in addition to the overall situation of religious freedom among different groups. I edit the report, making sure that all of the instructions are followed in compliance with the law.
In addition, I have a lot of discussion with the embassy post with regards to wording, content, etc. The posts try to minimize some of these issues since they have to actually live and work with the governments of these countries, so we go back and forth about whether the situation is "deteriorating" or "eroding" (apparently the two words have significantly different connotations) and such. We do about four different drafts and then we submit the drafts to the higher ups for approval before the report gets published. Even though I have only been doing this for a week, I have learned not only about how the State Dept. does things but also a ton about the countries I have been working with. The cool thing is that I can also draft policy memos and white papers and if I get it approved by two people in the bureau, I can submit it to Condoleeza Rice to read. In addition, we can influence the strategic plan for a particular embassy, so there is at least a small chance of actually influencing policy in some way.
Pretty great stuff--I'd love to have that internship myself! Readers, let us know what you're up to this summer, whether work or play--we'd love to hear from you. Pictures are a nice addition as well...!
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