This summer, the Rockefeller Center sent 20 students to Washington, D.C., for the 19th year of its First-Year Fellows Program.
The program gives first-year students the opportunity to engage in public policy early in their Dartmouth careers under the mentorship of Dartmouth alumni and with intensive training to help them navigate the political landscape. This summer, selected students placed in a wide range of public policy internships in Washington, including with the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, the Brookings Institution, the League of Conservation Voters, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Department of Commerce, and the Government Accountability Office.
Prior to the start of their internships, students participate in a weeklong Civic Skills Training program, to learn how the many moving parts of government come together to shape policy in the nation’s capital, explore the structures and processes of governance, and build the skills necessary to excel in their internships and beyond.
This year, First-Year Fellows met with CNN’s Jake Tapper ’91; Mitch Zeller ’79, former director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products; Josh Marcuse ’04, Google’s director of strategy; Morgan Cohen ’08, a prosecutor with the Department of Justice; and Lauren Kennedy ’02, a senior strategist at the Department of Education, among others.
“The emphasis during CST on networking and making the most out of all the connections in D.C. made me feel super confident and excited going into my internship. I felt more than able to communicate professionally and ask for help when needed,” said Dylan Smith ’28, who interned with the health policy journal Health Affairs.
During the internships themselves, students are paired with alumni mentors to help guide them within the diverse perspectives and professional settings of their internships and to introduce them to the Washington political scene. This summer’s mentoring alumni ranged from the Class of 1982 to the Class of 2024. Throughout the summer, the fellows attended receptions to network and visited key federal institutions—including the Department of Justice, the Congressional Budget Office, the House, the Senate, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims with Chief Special Master Brian Corcoran ’88—to deepen their understanding of government.
“The Fellowship was exciting, challenging, and enlightening for me. I was able to network, which I was hoping for, and utilize a lot of the skills I had as well as obtain lots of new ones,” said Allison Whitt ’28, who interned with Brooks, Bawden and Moore LLC.
The First-Year Fellows Program empowers students to start a deep and meaningful relationship with public policy early in their Dartmouth experience, and, as Associate Director Herschel Nachlis, a research assistant professor of government and faculty director of the First-Year Fellows Program, notes, the program “rests on the generosity of our alumni and the brilliance of our students.”
“It was such a wonderful summer and experience and I am incredibly grateful,” said Eloise Taylor ’28, who worked in the office of U.S Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill. ’98.
