Hi–my name is Anna Rachwalski, and I’m a junior double-major in Political Science and Economics. I also have minors in International Affairs and English and am a part of the wonderful Applied Politics Certificate.
Even though I think I know what I want to do and where I’m doing now, it wasn’t always that way. Whenever I talk to younger students or anyone in the internship search, I immediately transport back to freshman year, when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, what field I wanted to work in, or even how to get an internship.
Personally, it all began for me on campus. Freshman year, I dove into my international affairs courses, did a bit of public health policy research, and eventually pivoted to crisis management research within the Grady School of Mass Communication and Journalism’s Crisis Insights and Analytics lab.
Research, for me, was what built my skills the most freshman year. I learned to collaborate with people much older and more experienced than I was, rigorously read and write, and put together arguments that made sense and could stand up to fiery review processes.
During the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I decided that policy on a broader scale, not just concerning public health, was where my interests fell. To learn more, I joined the Spencer Frye Fellowship Program, where I dug into state policy, tracked bills, and got to experience what legislating looked like behind the scenes. That semester, I also took BUSN 5000 – Data Science in Business and Economics – for my economics major and realized that I loved public policy data analysis.
With these experiences in hand, I applied to a variety of summer internships–in state, local, and federal government. The SEC bit. I was drafted into the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis based on my experience in research and economics. They loved that I could whip together a literature review, work with PhDs, understand statistics, and also get the bigger political picture. Spending my summer in D.C. working on a rulemaking for a real federal agency was life-changing for me–I finally was where I wanted to be.
But, as always, where I wanted to be changed. While I wanted to center my love of economic and policy analysis in my future career, I also wanted to have a stable future career–not at the whims of federal government hiring freezes, executive policy shifts, and a revolving door of political appointees. I loved working for the government but wanted to find a way to do good from the outside.
After talking to my coworkers and networking within the SEC, I discovered economic consulting. Law firms, government institutions, and other organizations rely on economic consultants to produce research, analyses, reports, and testimony to be used in trials, specifically in litigation, regulatory, and commercial environments.
It’s a niche field––but one that was deeply connected to my interests in data and policy. This summer, I’m interning in econ consulting, and am so excited to do data work in this area that I’m so passionate about. Will my interests change again? Maybe! I just finished up a Virtual Student Federal Service internship with the State Department, where I worked on misinformation and propaganda–that direction may pull me next.
But I know that by staying open to new opportunities and relying on the fantastic programs that UGA and SPIA provides, I’ll have the support I need to succeed.