After the article was finished, it not only had to be proofread by senior office staff, it also had to be sent to various government offices for approval. Luckily, the article my colleague and I worked on was approved quickly, but other members of our office still have articles being reviewed by various government agencies.
For office work the operative word is "paperwork". For example, all work that I performed as an intern at the Trade Information Center had to be checked by senior staff, sent out, and catalogued in our files. In addition to this, I had to tally up the work that I did on the computer database as well as put down on a paper version of the computer database tally. Perhaps this is just because I had a government internship as opposed to a private sector internship. For whatever reason, college life does not prepare the student for the enormous amount of paperwork that he or she will have to deal with in the office. When I say this I do not mean that students cannot handle the work; I mean to say that we are not prepared for it. In the classroom setting one does not have to deal with this amount of paperwork, and, for myself, it took a little getting used to when I got into the office setting.
Surviving in a City.
Let's face it - Valparaiso University cannot teach a student survival skills for the world that they will be thrown into after they graduate. Dependent upon cafeteria food for so long, many students graduate college without the ability to even cook for themselves. This is just the beginning of basic knowledge students need to know before going out on their own. Because of my experience in Washington D.C., I know that I can handle living and working on my own in a city.
The first few weeks in D.C. were very disorientating. I had no clue where I was going, or how to get there. I was very happy to find out that my workplace was right outside the metro station.
