The National Low Income Housing Coalition is fortunate to have great interns every semester and summer. Our fall interns have been with us for a few weeks and are excited to share their experiences at the Coalition with you. Think interning with the Coalition might be for you? You’re in luck! We’ll begin accepting intern applicants this Friday.

Finding an internship during the school year is a challenge. An internship has to accommodate the life of a student— multiple exams and essays stacked on one day, many a sleepless night, the occasional mandatory meeting—as well as have the authenticity of a “real world” job. As if that weren’t demanding enough, an internship should relate to what one would like to do with one’s life. Thus, despite receiving many internship offers, from working as a beekeeper to tutoring elementary schoolers, none of these prospective internships really resonated with me as a Government and Politics major. In addition, an internship should be something that you can not only learn from, but something that you can be passionate about. Thus, the summer before school started, the daunting challenge of finding an internship that possessed all these qualities loomed large.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s internship program. Suddenly, finding the perfect internship no longer seemed impossible. As one of the Outreach Interns I am involved daily in the inner workings of NLIHC, which has truly allowed me to understand more about public policy in the nation and how constituents work to advocate programs to the federal government. And, yes, this is much more applicable to my major in Government and Politics than raising bees would have been.

This internship has taught me the importance and role that housing plays in today’s society. Every day someone is unable to pay rent because housing in this country is unaffordable. Through my time at NLIHC I have learned that this problem affects everyone in this country, rich and poor. The people at NLIHC have decided that this issue needs to be addressed, no matter how long it takes to change it for the better. Having an opportunity to work among some of the most dedicated and passionate people, who work to make this nation a better place, has been inspirational.

Not many people get the opportunity to intern somewhere like this; I am lucky I have had this chance. My advice? Don’t let an opportunity like this slip by. There are only so few chances to work somewhere that will understand your needs while fostering a passion for helping others through civic means.