The Interns

It’s 7:35 PM at a downtown Washington, D.C. restaurant. A plate of half eaten dumplings and soft drinks drank to the dregs litter the table. Every few minutes, an idea floats out from one of the half-dozen interns. It’ll land however it does—either challenged, or celebrated—before they move on to the next.

10:30 AM the next morning, and the scene isn’t much different. Laptops running shell scripts and regression analyses replace the dumplings, and expo markers scatter the tables of a conference room. But the opinions keep flying. The problems they’re solving are big ones, as the intern challenges at Booz Allen range from ending human trafficking, to engineering a polygraph machine for Twitter, to installing cameras into quad-copters to find victims in the wake of a disaster.

Collaborative challenges consume the intern from early morning to late evening. They have a perspective, and they’re not shy about sharing it. That’s by design. In diverse teams, it’s the ability to debate and examine their thinking that leads to greater clarity.

But the intern isn’t limited to a group. They’re encouraged to pursue their own ideas. After hours, they scribble, scrap, and scheme up a pitch to solve a problem plaguing society. The winner gets invited back the following semester to create a proof of concept for their pitch.

Whether alone or in groups, the intern shapes their own experience. With each brainstorm, answers become sharper and more defined. When they have an idea or a new opinion, they’re compelled to share it with their colleagues. Buzzing teammates on GroupMe, or scheduling a pickup kickball game, the intern is always available to debate and collaborate with their peers. In this constant conversation, the intern finds not just inspiration, but friends, and the chance to make a difference in the world.