IU junior gets 'D.C. experience' on Capitol Hill

Junior Matt Tyrrell didn't go back home to Naperville, Ill., to work during the summer -- he went to Washington, D.C., instead.\n Even though he sent his application in on the last possible day, Tyrrell was accepted for a summer internship at Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's Washington, D.C., office. He didn't expect to get the internship, but applied anyway to get his name in the door. When he received the phone call from Meghan Campione, Bayh's office manager, to come work for the summer he said it was like "a breath of fresh air" at the end of a long spring semester. \n"I thought 'there's no way I'd even get a response,' so it was really just a shot in the dark," Tyrrell said. \nWorking for a senator can be the best way to gain knowledge on the legislative process and to learn how congressional offices are run. \n"Interns aid the office staff on a day-to-day basis," said Bayh Press Secretary Meghan Keck. "Their work is mainly a product of their environment." \nA day's work usually included answering phone calls, writing letters and various clerical duties. \n"Basically (the interns) were there to help out if a certain staff member got overloaded with work," Tyrrell said. \nBut there's more to working in a congressional office than just office work.\n"Another important job interns do at the D.C. office is lead tour groups of Hoosiers around D.C. and research legislature that is currently on the senate floor," Keck said.\nLeading tours was one of Tyrrell's favorite jobs as an intern.\n"It was a break from some of the more tedious jobs we had to do," he said.\nTyrrell remembered when he and the constituents he was guiding on a tour of the Capitol Building were asked to step aside for the vice president. \n"Five people walked out of this adjacent hallway headed toward us and Dick Cheney was in the middle of them all ... I was like, 'Oh my god, there's the vice president.'" Tyrrell said.\nRandom run-ins with political figures aren't the only chance for interns to see a famous face. \n"The Intern Lecture Series is put on by the Senate Rules Committee," Campione said. "They ask politicians, journalists and other people around D.C. to come in and speak to the interns." \nTyrrell considers seeing Secretary of State Colin Powell speak through the ILS one of his top-five experiences while interning in D.C. \nBut Capitol Hill experience comes at a price. \n"You don't get paid and you have to relocate there for the summer and pay rent, and it's really expensive in Washington," Tyrrell said. \nOutside the office, students have to worry about more than just meals.\n"We do not provide housing, but we aid interns in finding housing here, on the Hill," Keck said.\nStudents don't have to spend all summer working 40 hours a week.\n"Some work half a summer depending on their schedules -- we try to get as many students the experience as possible," Keck said. \nWhile Tyrrell worked all summer, that's not always the case for all students.\n"We are very flexible with interns and their schedules -- they work any time in between late May to the end of August," Campione said. \nBy the end of his internship, Tyrrell said his eyes had opened to the ways Democrats and Republicans work together in the political arena. \n"It doesn't do you much good to be a left-wing crazy person or a right-wing crazy person. If you aren't willing to compromise, you aren't going to move forward," Tyrrell said. "In my own political views, I became much more moderate and much more open-minded to what other people have to think." \n-- Contact staff writer Adrienne Dye at addye@indiana.edu.