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Dear advocate,
I think summer is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year. (As a Houstonian in DC, I don’t mean the weather.)
Summer is beautiful to me because it is the season of internships, including the OCA National Summer Internship. After a nearly five month process, which included two rounds of application reads and a single round of Zoom interviews, thirteen Asian American students from across the country arrived in Washington, D.C. Many had never been to Capitol City and, for some, this was their first exposure to a big city as well. Representing nine ethnicities, ten states in four U.S. regions, various religious and spiritual backgrounds, a spectrum of gender identities, and many other identities, these young leaders would spend the next ten weeks expanding each others’ horizons and forming unique friendships.
Perhaps you’ve had the privilege of participating in an internship program before. If so, you may understand just how critical internships are in nurturing interpersonal relationships and interpersonal development. If you haven’t had an internship before, it’s an opportunity to sharpen hard skills but also pick up relevant and necessary soft skills for personal and professional leadership.
The kind of growth and positive change that OCA interns experience during their ten weeks in our program never ceases to amaze me, and is a continued source of inspiration for me. I may be biased because I am a former OCA-Greater Houston chapter intern, but I truly believe that the OCA National Summer Internship is one of the most transformative programs in the country for students looking to explore their AAPI identity, gain clarity on their career path, or to just find chosen family.
One of the most frequently asked questions by intern candidates to staff during the Zoom interview round was, “What keeps you going? What inspires you to continue working at OCA?”
For our answer, I encourage you to watch (at least the first 60 seconds) the recap video below:
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