With HCSS, it is possible for a 19-year-old to work with the White House.
Recently, I was tasked with one of my favorite projects as an intern so far: to create a survey to send to about 4000 construction companies in the United States to find out what governmental regulations — both at the state and national level — make their jobs most difficult. With the survey results, I will help create a report to send to the White House that I hope will lead to the repeal of many cumbersome and unnecessary regulations. Before this project, I also researched the government’s safety inspection rules and the repercussions of not following those rules.
I’ve been passionate about politics for nearly my whole life. My interest sprouted in fifth grade when I noticed that two people I knew supported two separate presidential candidates in 2008. My fifth grade teacher came into class with a button on her purse featuring one candidate, while my dad voted for the other. That year, my dad began teaching me very simple political knowledge about issues such as the redistribution of wealth, capitalism, and inflation. This interest in politics quickly flourished. I wrote a paper about Ronald Reagan in sixth grade and attended my first political event in the fall of 2011. In tenth grade, I founded a chapter of a statewide political organization for high school students. My political journey so far has allowed me to give a few speeches, meet well-known politicians, and get involved with multiple organizations.
When I applied to Texas A&M University in August 2015, my friends were surprised that I chose Business Honors and Management Information Systems as my majors over Political Science or Government. They had seen my passion for politics develop just as well as I had. However, I was making a choice to follow two of my other passions, computer science and business, in order to open up better career paths for myself.
As ironic as it may seem, I found out about HCSS because of politics. I attended a Youth Leadership School event hosted for the Leadership Institute by HCSS founder and CEO Mike Rydin in 2016 at HCSS. That’s where Mike introduced the company, and I got my first sense of how great of a place this is to work. Thinking it was the perfect fit for an MIS major, I introduced myself to Mike, applied for an internship, and the rest is history!
Coming into this internship, I would have never thought that I would be doing political work at a company that makes software and provides support for the heavy civil construction industry. But I’ve been extremely lucky to have an internship that offers so much crossover between my two passions of politics and business. I’m so thankful that I don’t have to completely ditch one interest to follow another.