How This Student's Internship Changed Her Career Path

One major benefit to internships that isn’t often discussed is their potential to show you what you don’t want to do.

Amelia Espinosa, a current senior at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, entered her spring internship in DC with the Washington Internship Institute hoping to beef up her skills and prepare for a career doing diplomatic work in the State Department. She interned at the National Peace Corps Association and chose the U.S. Foreign Policy Core Course at WII, working toward that goal.

“It was crazy how many things there were to do [in DC] at all times of the day,” Amelia says.

But once she got here, Amelia learned something surprising: her real interest was in development work. “Through my professional development class at WII I learned more about what a foreign service career would look like,” she says. “While I maintained an interest in the field, I discovered that my interest was more specific to development work. Thus, in changing my mind while I was in D.C., I was able to learn more about USAID and explore what a career in international development would look like.”

With her Peace Corps internship experience, as well as a triple major in Political Science, International Relations, and Spanish, Amelia will be well-equipped to succeed in international development settings.

Amelia has recently been offered a position doing Youth Development in Costa Rica with the Peace Corps, and has also been listed as a semi-finalist for Fulbright ETA in Uruguay.

Hard Work Pays Off

A new chosen career path isn’t the only thing Amelia got out of her semester in Washington—she also learned the valuable lesson that “hard work pays off.” While she was interning at the National Peace Corps Association, she “worked very hard and was granted a variety of cool opportunities because of that.” She’s applied that same mentality on campus, where she “[has] also been able to achieve some things that [she] never thought possible.”

Looking Back

When asked what advice she would give if she could speak to her younger self before the start of the program, she said she would tell herself to take advantage of opportunity: “There are a ton of cool things to do and people to meet in D.C., but that will not happen if you spend your weekends in the apartment. While it would be impossible to do everything, it is worth the effort to go to new places, especially by yourself.”

Looking back, what Amelia has missed most about DC is the food scene. “From food trucks to small little holes in the wall, the food was always great,” she says, “and I was able to try a lot of new things. I definitely missed it when I had to return home.”