Week 8: Touring the Capitol Grounds

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Monday, August 29, 2016

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Demitri Call

This week I spent a few days off of the normal work schedule as I went to a tour of NASA Goddard with the interns and also got to give them a tour of my work place, the Capitol. With only a couple weeks left of the internship there being days we were all taking off from work for these tours, it seemed like everybody was in overdrive trying to get our respective projects accomplished. 

The tour of NASA was extremely cool. I have always wanted to go see some NASA facilities and finally got my chance! Our tour led us through what Maria and Dahlia worked on so we got to check out their labs. I would say that the highlight of the tour was being able to see the Hubble Control Room. I did not imagine that would ever be possible and I definitely will not forget that experience.

After quite a bit of planning I finally got to give the tour of the Capitol. I began the day with a briefing. We were fortunate that there happened to be a briefing by the Planetary Society the day of our tour so our group got to see one of the ways in which policy makers get educated about science topics. After that, another resident in our building interning on the Hill, Dylan, gave our group an incredible tour of the Capitol building that I think many of us will remember for some time to come. One of the coolest parts was seeing the old house floor and hearing some of the history in it. 

The final part of my tour consisted of the traditional gift shop visit followed by a meeting with the Science Committee Chief of Staff, Richard Obermann, as well as the Energy Subcommittee Staff Director, Adam Rosenberg. Both of these people came from STEM fields and talked with us at length about their paths thrush science into the policy world and influencing science as well as their views on the relation between the two fields. I could not be more grateful for that opportunity as it was a chance to hear about a path that most of us don't know is even an option when coming from physics. All in all, I think it was a pretty solid week.

Demitri Call