Six students took a touch of Australia to Washington D.C. during the Christmas break as part of an internship program organised by Professor John Hart in the Political Science Department. Kate Morrison shares her experience.

Earlier this year I flew to the United States with 5 other people from ANU to participate in the Washington Internship program. When we arrived it was cold - very cold - but we were just too excited to feel it. We were going to be spending seven weeks living and working on Capitol Hill, and that really warmed us up. My internship placement was with the House Small Business Committee, but I also spent a week interning in the Chairwoman's office, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, from New York's 12th district.

For me the internship experience was so many different things, there were days after I had spent six hours photocopying that I thought I had made a mistake spending all my money travelling to the United States. But there were times, when I was standing in a room listening to Senator John Kerry give a speech, or standing in the longest queue imaginable trying to get into an Obama rally, that I knew that I didn't want to be anywhere else.

Capitol Hill and working in Congress is not quite as glamorous as The West Wing makes it appear. There is a lot of hard work that goes into making things happen, and not all of it is interesting. But it is amazing to be there.

I loved walking to the White House when it was snowing, just to get a great picture. I loved attending the Congressional Hispanic Caucus meetings to take notes while the Congressmen and women joked amongst themselves. I loved attending the events hosted by lobbyists, if only for the free food and alcohol. I loved getting ushered past tourists as the security guards yelled: "Make way for the people who work here!" I loved having my little intern badge, which let me catch the underground subway between my office building and the Capitol, and I loved working in my office, with interesting and intelligent people who taught me so much.

The internship finished so quickly that I when it was all over I was not really ready to come home. It was a great experience that I would recommend to anyone interested in American politics, and Dr John Hart was very supportive of all of us. It really was a blast!

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