Greetings from Sacramento!

Hello fellow CSRE interns, Jennifer, and anyone else who might be reading this. I arrived to Sacramento on Sunday night and I have a lot of adjusting to do! I'm from a smaller city (55,000 or so) and being in the state Capitol at the age of 21 and working on educational policy is something I didn't think I would be able to do until I graduated from Stanford. First of all, I'll have to get used to public transportation (I'll be taking the bus to the office, which is about 8 miles from the apartment), the heat (it's been around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and supposedly it will be in the high 90s by the end of the week), living in a big city, and many other things. Monday was my first day of work and it went really well, although I can sense I'll be working non-stop. I get in at 9am and get out at around 6pm. Last night we didn't get out until 7pm.

My summer internship is with a public interest Law Firm called Public Advocates. I'll be working on a couple of different projects, but mainly on the implementations of a 2005 Settlement called Williams v. California. It will provide $1 billion for underrepresented schools that are in need of textbooks and instructional materials, qualified teachers, and safe and clean facilities. I will talk more in details in my upcoming posts.

Even though it is my first few days at the office, I can already sense this will be a very rewarding experience for me in many levels. Being around policymakers and people who genuinely want to improve the decay of California public schools makes me more interested in searching a career in the public or non profit sector, although I'm not sure under what role.

Today I had to go into the public library to conduct some online research. As I was waiting outside for the library to open, a high school class arrived for what looked like a tour of their facilities. Once we went inside and they came around to where I was seating (which happened to be the Sociology, Race Relations, College Information, etc. Floor), I silently observed from where I was seating. It made me so sad to see how disengaged these students were while the librarian provided them with information of the many free resources that are available to them. She even went on to tell them there is a college counselor for consultations a few times a week, yet none of them seemed to realize how invaluable this resource is. Indeed, I was doing research on how to improve the educational opportunities of these underrepresented students. However, before any of us can truly make an impact, we have to get the students to care themselves.