Notes from the Field: Randy Huang ’19

Randy Huang ’19 comes from Wisconsin and attended Arrowhead High School. In high school, he pursued his interest in public policy by serving as president of his school’s Junior Statesmen of America club and winning multiple regional speaking awards. He is currently pursuing a Government major and an International Studies minor at Dartmouth. Randy quickly embraced his interest in international relations by working as an editor at World Outlook, Dartmouth’s international affairs journal. He also pursued his interest in public service by working as an intern at a Hanover-based veterans’ support organization. Furthermore, he has served as a research assistant for the Government department and is currently a Presidential Scholar. He traveled to England in the Spring of 2017 as an exchange student to Keble College, Oxford. After graduation, Randy plans on attending graduate school and pursuing a career in the State Department’s civil service.

Randy Huang ’19 was funded by the Rockefeller Center for a Fall 2017 internship, with generous support from the Mr. E. John Rosenwald Jr. ’52 Public Affairs Internship Fund.

This past fall, I interned at the Department of State’s Office of the Historian. The Office of the Historian prepares a historical record of United States foreign policy in the form of the Foreign Relations of the United States, a publication that contains key documents relating to foreign affairs. Furthermore, the Office conducts other history-related activities, including historical studies that help inform and evaluate the Department of State’s policies as well as public outreach, such as answering questions and hosting historical conferences.

As an intern, I worked on projects relating to the Office’s policy studies and its efforts to publish the Foreign Relations of the United States, or FRUS. In particular, I assisted with FRUS by helping the Office’s historians with their efforts to prepare the documents for publication. I also worked on the Office’s historical studies, in order to make them more useful for informing United States policy.

Overall, I intend on using my experiences in history-related work to incorporate a greater historical perspective in my future academic and professional pursuits. My work has exposed me to new forms of publications that can help inform my future pursuits related to foreign policy. For example, I can draw upon my familiarity with FRUS in order to gain insight on the process of formulating and carrying out policy. Since FRUS contains many important documents on various aspects of foreign policy, it is an excellent tool for discovering history that might be useful for academic and professional work relating to U.S. policy. I also believe that my studies have better informed me of the value of institutional history, which I will keep in mind during my future endeavors. The Office also works with other organizations in order to gather a wider array of documents. My experiences with this process have given me valuable inter-organizational experience, which will aid me in future work with complex institutions.

I would like to thank the Rockefeller Center, particularly Mr. E. John Rosenwald Jr. ’52, for providing the funding that made this internship experience possible. This assistance enabled me to acquire the housing necessary to pursue this extraordinary opportunity in Washington D.C.