CHIP Alumni Daniel Khoshkepazi Reflects on Capitol Hill Experience

By Daniel Khoshkepazi

Daniel Khoshkepazi interned with Senator Chris Van Hollen during Fall 2021. He also serves as the President of the Student Government Association at the University of Baltimore.

Over the Fall 2021 semester, I had the great opportunity to intern with the Office of Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland. Throughout this internship, I got the chance to primarily assist with constituent correspondence, tracking constituent communications, and taking notes at briefings on a diverse variety of topics. My favorite part of this internship was learning about how passionate constituents can be regarding different issues and events as they developed in real life while I was an intern.

As an immigrant of Iranian descent, prior to being in this internship, I always found the idea of working in Washington D.C. intimidating, but after being part of this internship I had a major shift in perspective thanks to how welcoming and encouraging everyone I worked with was. I greatly enjoyed working with the office staff because they were open to providing valuable feedback that enabled me to perform my duties and tasks successfully while also growing as a professional and further developing research and writing skills.

Being selected as a Fall 2021 CHIP Fellow enabled me to find a practical way to put in practice the lessons I learned as a global affairs and human security master student and gain experience that further build upon my academic background as a political science undergraduate student. I am beyond thankful for all the support PAAIA has provided me throughout the internship process and I am beyond excited to graduate in the incoming New Year and Spring 2022 semester.