By AUDREY PARENTE
STAFF WRITER
Kira Vuille-Kowing admits to being a bit nervous during her internship interview with a representative from the White House Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, D.C.
The pivotal telephone call came as a result of the 21-year-old Embry-Riddle Aeronautic University senior filing an internship application that included an essay she wrote about global warming and addressed to President Barack Obama.
The interview must have gone well. Vuille-Kowing left Thursday to begin a fall internship at the council's office on Jackson Place, across from the White House.
STAFF WRITER
Kira Vuille-Kowing admits to being a bit nervous during her internship interview with a representative from the White House Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, D.C.
The pivotal telephone call came as a result of the 21-year-old Embry-Riddle Aeronautic University senior filing an internship application that included an essay she wrote about global warming and addressed to President Barack Obama.
The interview must have gone well. Vuille-Kowing left Thursday to begin a fall internship at the council's office on Jackson Place, across from the White House.
Vuille-Kowing said she will be working with the federal agency that
focuses on the science and basis for all American environmental
policies under Nancy Sutley, chairman.
Vuille-Kowing might look familiar to some classmates at ERAU, where she offered weather reports broadcast by the school's in-house television station. But the applied meteorology and communications major with a minor is international relations has bigger ambitions.
"That (TV) experience will help me in explaining scientific weather and environment to people," she said. But her big goal is to make a difference by working to solve environmental problems.
An excerpt from her essay offers a glimpse into her goals. In it she writes about seeing herself in the future, reporting to the president:
"I've gathered a team of the most brilliant climatologists, meteorologists, and physicists in the country to find a solution to the now-critical global warming crisis. . . The team proposes reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth by deploying a large number of orbiting reflectors or reflecting material in space."
A White House internship is not something to take lightly, said Zach Zagar, director of strategic development at Washington Internship Program, one of many agencies that are paid as much as $3,400 to place interns in mostly unpaid jobs in the nation's capital.
Vuille-Kowning said she did not use an agency to win her internship. She applied directly to the White House online at whitehouse.gov, keyword: internships. She will not be paid and will be responsible for personal expenses, including food, transportation and "some good business suits," she said.
A previous internship with WESH TV/Orlando did not pay either, but she did receive compensation during a News-Journal internship during which she was involved with online multimedia, including video production and blogging.
Media focus on recent scandals might seem to have tarnished the image of government interns, but "there are hundreds of thousands of successful interns who come through Washington, D.C." for fall, spring and summer terms each year, Zagar said.
He said intern placements through his agency include everything from food and beverage majors working at the Hilton in Arlington, Va., to others in the Legislature.
"Forty-percent of the internships are in public service," he said. Few have problems. "They are more the exception."
Vuille-Kowing's parents are confident their daughter will not be swept up by the political scene.
"It's great that she is going up there and participating as an intern in this climate-change program," said her father, Charles Vuille, an engineering and physics instructor at ERAU. "It's what she has wanted to do. My daughter is a very level-headed kind of person and knows how to address situations and look at things skeptically and honestly as opposed to being swept up with the glitz and glamor."
The Washington-bound student will gain college credit for her internship and expects to load up on classes when she returns to ERAU for the winter term in order to graduate on time in May 2010.
While in Washington, Vuille-Kowing said she also plans to train for the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1.
"My mother is worried about the running," she said.
But mom, Dianne Kowing, chief of the Eye Clinic at Daytona Beach VA Outpatient Clinic, said the internship is "a lifetime opportunity" for her daughter, "a hard worker" who "will be fine because she will be living with her aunt."
Kowing said her daughter has been interested in meteorology since she was a child.
"I think she has always been interested in weather because she has been through so many hurricanes -- and a tiny tornado that hit some wood, which flew around and hit the side of my car and dented it and broke a window," Kowing said. "She has always loved the outdoors and when you live in Florida, how can you not be interested in the weather?"
Rich Snow, associate professor of meteorology at ERAU, said Vuille-Kowing was a student in two classes he teaches: climatology and climate change."She was one of the most attentive students I have had. She was always focused," said Snow. "And also altruistic -- willing to help other kids. We had a class in computer mapping, and she was helping other guys who didn't get the technique."
Snow said he is excited about her opportunity.
"I am hoping they will give her some meaningful work, not just making copies," Snow said. "I think her idea isn't to make a lot of money (in a career) but to do something meaningful."
Internships can be costly
The Washington Internship Program, a for-profit agency at 7606 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C., sends information about approximate costs with letters to accepted interns.
*WIP charges an application fee of $1,000 and the placement fee is $1,400 (due upon first internship offer. An additional intern fee of $1,000 is due 30 days before internship.
* The WIP housing plan is $1,000 monthly for shared housing, $1,500 for singles. Rentals require a $450 holding/maintenance fee and a refundable $200 cleanliness/key deposit.
* Metro bus route -- $4 -- stops out front and is walking distance (less than1/2-mile) from the Silver Spring Metro. A SmartTrip card, a fare card that can be funded continually, is easy to use for transportation.
*More information about federal internships is available online at whitehouse.gov, keyword: internships.
-- Audrey Parente
Vuille-Kowing might look familiar to some classmates at ERAU, where she offered weather reports broadcast by the school's in-house television station. But the applied meteorology and communications major with a minor is international relations has bigger ambitions.
"That (TV) experience will help me in explaining scientific weather and environment to people," she said. But her big goal is to make a difference by working to solve environmental problems.
An excerpt from her essay offers a glimpse into her goals. In it she writes about seeing herself in the future, reporting to the president:
"I've gathered a team of the most brilliant climatologists, meteorologists, and physicists in the country to find a solution to the now-critical global warming crisis. . . The team proposes reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth by deploying a large number of orbiting reflectors or reflecting material in space."
A White House internship is not something to take lightly, said Zach Zagar, director of strategic development at Washington Internship Program, one of many agencies that are paid as much as $3,400 to place interns in mostly unpaid jobs in the nation's capital.
Vuille-Kowning said she did not use an agency to win her internship. She applied directly to the White House online at whitehouse.gov, keyword: internships. She will not be paid and will be responsible for personal expenses, including food, transportation and "some good business suits," she said.
A previous internship with WESH TV/Orlando did not pay either, but she did receive compensation during a News-Journal internship during which she was involved with online multimedia, including video production and blogging.
Media focus on recent scandals might seem to have tarnished the image of government interns, but "there are hundreds of thousands of successful interns who come through Washington, D.C." for fall, spring and summer terms each year, Zagar said.
He said intern placements through his agency include everything from food and beverage majors working at the Hilton in Arlington, Va., to others in the Legislature.
"Forty-percent of the internships are in public service," he said. Few have problems. "They are more the exception."
Vuille-Kowing's parents are confident their daughter will not be swept up by the political scene.
"It's great that she is going up there and participating as an intern in this climate-change program," said her father, Charles Vuille, an engineering and physics instructor at ERAU. "It's what she has wanted to do. My daughter is a very level-headed kind of person and knows how to address situations and look at things skeptically and honestly as opposed to being swept up with the glitz and glamor."
The Washington-bound student will gain college credit for her internship and expects to load up on classes when she returns to ERAU for the winter term in order to graduate on time in May 2010.
While in Washington, Vuille-Kowing said she also plans to train for the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1.
"My mother is worried about the running," she said.
But mom, Dianne Kowing, chief of the Eye Clinic at Daytona Beach VA Outpatient Clinic, said the internship is "a lifetime opportunity" for her daughter, "a hard worker" who "will be fine because she will be living with her aunt."
Kowing said her daughter has been interested in meteorology since she was a child.
"I think she has always been interested in weather because she has been through so many hurricanes -- and a tiny tornado that hit some wood, which flew around and hit the side of my car and dented it and broke a window," Kowing said. "She has always loved the outdoors and when you live in Florida, how can you not be interested in the weather?"
Rich Snow, associate professor of meteorology at ERAU, said Vuille-Kowing was a student in two classes he teaches: climatology and climate change."She was one of the most attentive students I have had. She was always focused," said Snow. "And also altruistic -- willing to help other kids. We had a class in computer mapping, and she was helping other guys who didn't get the technique."
Snow said he is excited about her opportunity.
"I am hoping they will give her some meaningful work, not just making copies," Snow said. "I think her idea isn't to make a lot of money (in a career) but to do something meaningful."
Internships can be costly
The Washington Internship Program, a for-profit agency at 7606 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C., sends information about approximate costs with letters to accepted interns.
*WIP charges an application fee of $1,000 and the placement fee is $1,400 (due upon first internship offer. An additional intern fee of $1,000 is due 30 days before internship.
* The WIP housing plan is $1,000 monthly for shared housing, $1,500 for singles. Rentals require a $450 holding/maintenance fee and a refundable $200 cleanliness/key deposit.
* Metro bus route -- $4 -- stops out front and is walking distance (less than1/2-mile) from the Silver Spring Metro. A SmartTrip card, a fare card that can be funded continually, is easy to use for transportation.
*More information about federal internships is available online at whitehouse.gov, keyword: internships.
-- Audrey Parente
