The IWP Internship Experience: Alyssa Seufert

My internship with The Institute of World Politics was a series of firsts. This was my first semester away from my university, the University of Texas at Austin. It was my first time living in D.C. It was my first full-time internship. Those changes made the experience feel unfamiliar at first, but they also made it more formative. Being in a new environment, surrounded by people working in policy and national security, pushed me to take my academic interests more seriously and think about how they translate beyond the classroom.

One of the biggest adjustments was learning how to approach research differently. Through my project on critical minerals, I focused on cobalt supply chains and how China’s dominance in processing creates a vulnerability for the United States. What stood out to me was how much the framing of a problem matters. In class, I’m used to exploring ideas broadly and engaging with theory, spending time unpacking different frameworks and perspectives to understand how scholars explain global issues. In this internship, I had to narrow in on what actually drives outcomes and explain it clearly enough that someone else could act on it. That shift forced me to think more carefully about what is important, not just what is interesting.

Living in D.C. also made the work feel more immediate. Hearing from guest speakers who had worked in government or intelligence, and visiting institutions connected to national security, made it easier to picture how these issues play out in real time. People spoke openly about uncertainty, tradeoffs, and the limits of what policy can achieve, which added a level of realism that I had not fully considered before.

Alyssa Seufert
University of Texas at Austin, Class of 2027
Research Intern