This semester I have been interning at the Department of Homeland Security’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism or START. START’s headquarters is located on the second floor of the University of Maryland 's Route 1 Annex building at 8400 Baltimore Avenue. The office consists of multiple areas with office spaces, consisting of roughly 20-30 computers for interns to work, grouped together in bullpens. My research division within START is Unconventional Weapons and Technology (UWT) which looks into a wide variety of different non-traditional agents of terrorism including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. The project I am tasked with within this division is Nuclear Detection Architecture where I assess
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I have noticed both similarities and differences in my day-to-day working experience at START when compared to my previous internships. The most obvious similarity is that all three are government internships. As a Government & Politics major, this has always been greatly beneficial to me as I am able to constantly receive a practical sense of how different government/government-affiliated agencies operate. Another similarity I found was in the atmosphere of the work environment itself; friendly, productive, and frequent casual discussion on relevant political topics. What I also have found similar among the three internships, to my benefit, is how well these intern coordinators have been successfully able to put the priority of cultivating an ideal experiential learning environment for the interns first. At START in particular, our program has actually revolved around the education and skill-building of me as an intern rather simply being forced to do the leg-work for caseworkers and researchers in an exploitive and non-educational …show more content…
I believe that I could improve on my performance by enhancing my productivity overall through a more consistent commitment towards my goals. I feel as though I have stretched myself too thin this semester by taking a full amount of academic credits and being involved in multiple extracurricular activities including the Student Government Association, the Maryland Student Legislature, and a startup club on-campus called Maryland Discourse. I believe that I can accomplish all of my set goals this semester by using my time at a more efficient pace while budgeting my time around my internship hours with more
I have noticed both similarities and differences in my day-to-day working experience at START when compared to my previous internships. The most obvious similarity is that all three are government internships. As a Government & Politics major, this has always been greatly beneficial to me as I am able to constantly receive a practical sense of how different government/government-affiliated agencies operate. Another similarity I found was in the atmosphere of the work environment itself; friendly, productive, and frequent casual discussion on relevant political topics. What I also have found similar among the three internships, to my benefit, is how well these intern coordinators have been successfully able to put the priority of cultivating an ideal experiential learning environment for the interns first. At START in particular, our program has actually revolved around the education and skill-building of me as an intern rather simply being forced to do the leg-work for caseworkers and researchers in an exploitive and non-educational …show more content…
I believe that I could improve on my performance by enhancing my productivity overall through a more consistent commitment towards my goals. I feel as though I have stretched myself too thin this semester by taking a full amount of academic credits and being involved in multiple extracurricular activities including the Student Government Association, the Maryland Student Legislature, and a startup club on-campus called Maryland Discourse. I believe that I can accomplish all of my set goals this semester by using my time at a more efficient pace while budgeting my time around my internship hours with more