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Amanda Krause
MPIA
2007
"DC is the Place to Land a Public Service Job"
D.C. is the
place to land a public service job-just ask Amanda
Krause.
Krause,
who will graduate from the Master of Public and International
Affairs program with a focus in Global Political Economy
this April, was offered a job by the Government Accountability
Office in Washington, D.C. in December 2006. She will
begin working there come June.
One of 18 GSPIA
students accepted into the Washington, D.C semester
program for Fall 2006, she got the opportunity to
intern at the Department of State, studying pressing
issues in today's political discourse, such as how
terrorists finance their attacks, and how economic
sanctions are an effective bargaining tool against
nations that present threats to world peace and security.
She was fortunate enough to be able to study a very
urgent topic: economic sanctions against North Korea
as a measure of thwarting potential nuclear threat.
One semester
prior, in May 2006, Krause interned at the Government
Accountability Office, working on federal aviation
issues. At GAO, Krause learned the process of auditing
the FAA. The major current topics, she said, are determining
appropriate maintenance schedules for airplane equipment,
and effectively balancing airspace safety measures
with cost expenditures.
Congressional
requests had necessitated the audits, Krause said.
She contributed to a report that addressed reliability-focused
maintenance of air traffic-control equipment; this
report was published and presented to Congress. "I
was very proud of contributing to that report," she
said. She noted that members of the nation's largest
maintenance unions were concerned that re-tooling
maintenance schedules for maximum cost effectiveness
would adversely affect airspace safety and cause widespread
layoffs in the industry.
Krause was
enthusiastic about her time spent in Washington .
She enumerated the benefits of having internships
relevant to her studies: drafting memos, working with
politicians and experts in the field, conducting interviews,
and working with groups on site-specific projects.
Praising the
program's value, Krause said, "You get to be in DC,
where all the action is taking place-it's the heart
and soul of politics."
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