Washington DC Adventure: Featured events in Young Leaders Program

The internship in the Heritage Foundation, which is known as “Young Leaders Program”, attracts young conservative leaders around the country. In addition to the practical experience and skills that the interns would acquire in the office, the Heritage Foundation also offers all the interns a variety of programs and opportunities that educational and skill enhancing seminars, weekly events where the interns can meet and talk with the nation’s leading policy-makers, and other exciting events in DC.

General introduction of some featured events for the Heritage interns:

Orientation. All the interns attended the two-day mandatory orientation. At the first day, many experts and staff in the Heritage Foundation were introduced to the interns. We also had a tour in the building and basically learned how the Heritage Foundation was operated. The second day was about team building. All the interns went to National Gallery of Art and the National Archives.

Interns attend weekly policy briefings with Heritage policy experts on domestic and foreign policy issues. So far, we have had policy briefings regarding to education policy, energy and environment policy, the Reagan Administration policy, protect America policy, and health care policy.

Weekly “First Principle Luncheon”, where all the interns have the opportunity to sharpen their thoughts and rediscover the fundamental principles in order to reclaim the future, by having experts who devote their time and research to increasing public understanding of America’s founding principles.

Lectures and seminars held at Heritage, which give interns the chance to hear from prominent conservative leaders, authors and policymakers. During the first two weeks, the Heritage YLP invited Judy Schneider, who is a specialist in the Congressional Research Service, and John McConnell, who is a former White House Speechwriter for Bush Administration, come to the Heritage and provide the interns unique opportunities to understand how things really work on Capitol Hill and what it is like to work in the White House. No need to mention, the President of Heritage, Former Senator Jim DeMint, gave the interns an excellent speech on the vision of Heritage and the conservatives.

In addition, there are many other events, such as panel discussion, book events and seminars hold by different departments in the Heritage Foundation. All the interns are welcomed to attend any one they are interested in. Personally speaking, I am strongly interested in foreign affairs in Asia and Middle East areas, and also in some US domestic policies, so that I have attended several events and discussions regarding to sustainability in Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal, national defense, America’s freedom, tradition and Constitution, Taiwan and Trans-Pacific Partnership, and US-India market relationship, etc. All the discussions and seminars are recorded to further research. Most of them can be reached in the Heritage official website.

A debate between the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation on libertarianism and conservatism. This debate is about the two philosophies and their associated policy applications, as interns from the Heritage foundation and the Cato Institute go head-to-head to answer the perennial question: is libertarianism or conservatism the better political philosophy. All the interns in the Heritage Foundation have been researching on different issues to make contribution to this debate.

Practical skills workshops teach researching, op-ed writing, blogging, etiquette, and resume writing.

Interns engage with each other in reading groups and discussions, bible studies.

Access to different briefings, hearings, and events hold in different think tanks and institutes, such as Capitol Hill, Supreme Court, Brookings Institute, CSIS, CNN, Reagan Building, etc.

Tours include the Capitol Hill, Library of Congress, Pentagon, Supreme Court, and Mount Vernon.

In July, there are more exciting events that will be hold in the Heritage Foundation, as expected. In my next post, I will share more of my experience working in the office. Here I want to share a few pictures of some events mentioned above.