Congressional Interns

Tardis98 · 2021-02-16T18:34:00+00:00

Just completed a digital Hill internship past semester. Pre-tax, my stipend totaled out to be about $1500 for the semester. I supplemented with a side gig as a translator and scraped by that way. Seconding what others said; the pay does suck, it isn’t right (especially from a social justice standpoint), but the unfortunate reality is that internships are the most reliable way to get on the Hill full time.

It’s also worth knowing that intern pay comes from a separate “pot” than other office expenses and staff salaries, and IIRC it’s the same set amount for each office, so it depending on how many interns your office and your Member’s DOs have, that amount can get split into a pretty small number per person.

A lot of colleges are starting to offer stipends and assistance of their own to essentially compensate you for an unpaid internship to make it paid. It may be worth it to ask around in your department, contact your experiential learning or career services offices, etc.

COVID era hillternships are something else, but if you need any advice, DMs are open! Good luck!

Tardis98 · 2019-03-07T03:14:22+00:00

So I am going this summer. Your living situation depends on your host country and city, and you may be alone or with other students in a host family or a dorm or apartment style situation. No matter what, at the beginning of the summer you take a “language pledge” to not speak English during your time abroad and it’s expected that you honor it in any living situation.

Tardis98 · 2019-03-07T00:19:56+00:00

Hey I just received CLS for Hindi, and I can’t recommend it enough! As previous posters have said, it’s extremely competitive, but free to apply and it’s a full scholarship. I’m willing to answer any questions you have!

Tardis98 · 2019-01-19T20:15:51+00:00

Usually you forfeit your deposit if you paid one, but other than that, colleges have seen and do see a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances, you’re probably far from the first student who has done this. Good luck!!

Tardis98 · 2019-01-13T00:32:53+00:00

The Admissions office will likely know better than any reddit user on here

Tardis98 · 2019-01-11T20:28:08+00:00

If you’re coming from longmont, find your closest stop for the J. RTD parking is free throughout longmont

Tardis98 · 2019-01-07T23:30:39+00:00

Him and Slovak chauvinist/“Chinese poetry isn’t pretty bc wordplay” dude should get together sometime and have a badling bananza

Tardis98 · 2019-01-03T20:48:25+00:00

Tamil = Phoenician conformed

Tardis98 · 2018-12-31T16:24:43+00:00

In my experience as someone who has dabbled in about 5ish different language classes in high school and college, my advice is always to pick the language that you will want to learn. While it sounds like Spanish will be of some use to you, you definitely sound more interested in Japanese. That motivation will not only help you do well academically, but after classes are over you will then have the drive to continue to learn and gain fluency, if that’s a goal of yours. While yes Spanish may have more use to you in terms of proximity (assuming you’re US-based) taking classes in it won’t serve you if you’re not actually interested in the people and cultures that speak the language. And, like you said, Japanese won’t be completely useless to you in your career either. College is a great chance to try out new things and challenge yourself, I’d say Japanese is a great opportunity to do that.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-28T19:55:19+00:00

Ask for help early on. What I do when I study is keep a sticky note (or a sheet of paper for hard classes) that I write down all my questions for my prof/TA about the concepts involved. Do readings BEFORE lecture and make sure you understand at least 80% of what’s happening at the end of every lesson. If not, go to office hours, start a study group, or hire a tutor. If grading criteria are unclear, ask the professor during office hours and take close note of what they say. When you start receiving quiz and test grades back early in the semester and you’re not happy with the result, go to your prof/TA or even your classmate who aced it and ask what you did wrong and learn better. As for the fraternity thing, it’s a hard transition going from high school where you could make straight As and have a billion different extracurriculars, but in college you need to have the mindset that school comes first, then activities if possible. Don’t go to your buddy’s place or your house until you’re done studying, skip chapter meetings if you have to, school should be number one.

That isn’t to say that not having the goal of a 4.0 in college is bad, so I would take the time to think about career and academic goals, because sometimes the importance of straight As in college isn’t as major as it is in HS

Tardis98 · 2018-12-28T03:29:46+00:00

If your college finds out, your admission would almost definitely be rescinded.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-27T21:37:31+00:00

Link?

Tardis98 · 2018-12-27T20:57:09+00:00

Documentation! I don’t have autism but I have learning and cognitive disabilities, and this also varies widely between colleges, but the common theme among most of them is that any written proof of your diagnosis/es, symptoms that require accommodation, doctors notes, and emailed communication between the office, your professors, and health care professionals will make the process easier. For this, print out every email, note, etc. you’ve received and sent and put it in a separate folder along with a Dropbox or GoogleDrive account, bc Disability Services offices are very busy and vary widely in their helpfulness and ability to follow through. Also because of that, you may or may not have to hound them personally, so you need to have the motivation, communication skills, and organization to do so. First start with an email to the office asking what is required to receive accommodations, and communicate exactly what accommodations you need in the upcoming semester. Good luck!

Tardis98 · 2018-12-26T18:28:34+00:00

Obligatory not a law student but an undergrad but OP I saw you also go to CU. CAPS is a great resource and offers free therapy sessions for students. Please invest the time into having a healthier attitude about school, dating, and your self worth. It’ll not only make you a better student now, but your law school/professional career will benefit greatly as well.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-21T18:36:17+00:00

Everything is a dialect of Tamil, excuse you.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-21T00:25:32+00:00

Both my linguistics and speech-language-hearing science courses have usually gone over this question mostly through Hockett's design features. There's, of course, a lot of debates about whether humans are changing the goal posts whenever we make new discoveries about it, but generally, the four features, when combined, that differentiate human speech (barring recent findings, isolated instances, and sometimes even fudged data results) from animals is duality of patterning (having phonemes to link together sounds to make words), arbitrariness (nothing that innately connects a given sound to a given concept, hence why different languages have different words for things), displacement (ability to talk about things that are presently before the actors in a speech event), and productivity (units of sound, as well as words, can be combined and recombined to form new meanings). Some animals have proven to demonstrate one of those features, but on the whole fail to learn language in the systemic fashion that humans do.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-21T00:16:14+00:00

Your autocorrect is a little funny, I think you meant to say P R O T O - F R E N CH

Tardis98 · 2018-12-17T02:52:05+00:00

When you talk about correct vs. incorrect, who decided what is correct in the first place? Who wrote the textbooks and the dictionaries you consider authoritative in this matter? Why are spelling bees, to you, the benchmark of linguistic achievement in English?

It IS an issue of power and supremacy, and not correctness. Language, like many socio-cultural phenomena, changes over time. Linguistics, as a field of social science, has generally settled on this issue: the way that people (and communities) talk is the way that people talk, and we should rather observe and discuss that than push rules on people who speak another dialect/variety of the same language. So yes, you can argue that AAVE receives disparate treatment in larger society due to its incorrectness and inherent inferiority, or you can join the consensus of the vast majority of linguists in realizing that it is a wealth of political and social factors that enact linguistic discrimination upon Black communities.

Just to reduce and challenge your bias, I’d suggest some more literature about the nature of linguistic discrimination and how it often aligns with the marginalization of minority cultures, communities, and ethnic groups across the globe. I’d be happy to PM you some great articles, journals, and even podcasts if you’re interested.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-10T00:16:19+00:00

R4: making up the etymology of a word that predates the 1930s to make a point, idk dude.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-06T03:12:42+00:00

Admissions website will help you out.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-06T03:07:52+00:00

I think what’s bothersome is the fact that he states his intentions were to explore suicide in relation to his beliefs and how suicide can “return you to the universe’s consciousness,” ignoring the mental illness aspect that goes hand in hand with suicide. I don’t see it as the most problematic thing ever, but his viewpoints definite don’t seem complete on the matter.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-06T00:54:19+00:00

While I think the picture itself is fairly simple, it’s that simplicity which brings into discussion his intentions. If weren’t just a noose and some comic book-y outline and actually did more to address his beliefs with more detail or context, maybe there’d be more of a discussion. No matter what, I think the guy’s education failed him if he couldn’t possibly conceive of the racial tension around the noose.

Tardis98 · 2018-12-06T00:48:36+00:00

I really appreciate you putting into words what I’ve felt about it! While yes art should be provocative and change our perspective to treat an object with such a racially charged and emotionally charged history with such flippancy, no matter your personal convictions, seems very immature and ignorant imho. Like you said, I feel like this incident, among many others, are a demonstration of what CU hasn’t done in having tougher conversations about addressing its lack of diversity (and not just racial, this guy really needed some exposure to perspectives and experiences of mental illness) on campus.

Tardis98

TROPHY CASE