Frequently Asked Questions

The Washington Center provides housing accommodations to all students who request them. Some students choose to find their own housing accommodations and some live with friends or relatives in the area. Our housing accommodations offer shared facilities in apartment buildings in northern Virginia and suburban Maryland. They are located in well-lit, high traffic areas that provide comfortable surroundings. The apartments are fully furnished, and provide local telephone and basic cable service, 24-hour front desk, and laundry facilities. Each building is assigned at least one Resident Assistant who is on duty each evening from 7:30 pm to 7:00 am. The Resident Assistant serves as an advisor to students and is available to answer questions as well as to help in the event of an emergency. Students have an emergency phone number to call in the event of an emergency. This number is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Most students do not bring a car to D.C., and as such, TWC prefers that the workplace be Metro or bus accessible. TWC provides students with a detailed orientation to the Metro system, and the apartment facilities are all within walking distance to the Metro. However, some placements do require that students have a car. If this is the case, please communicate this to TWC. Most of the housing facilities have parking spaces available for interns. Students are responsible for covering the cost of their transportation. Some internship placement sites do choose to provide a transportation allowance to the student.

TWC emphasizes to students that Washington, D.C. is a very professional city and students should dress accordingly. We suggest that students wear a suit during the first week of work and then get a sense of each organization's dress policy or culture and make adjustments accordingly.

The Washington Center 's program is academic in nature. Students earn college credit for their semester in Washington. In addition to their internship, they are required to take a class which meets for three hours one night per week. Students are required to attend programming on Monday afternoons. Students also must attend one or two events on the Hill each semester. Finally, the student is required to complete a portfolio. The portfolio documents the knowledge gained during the semester in Washington.

Interns who will be handling confidential or sensitive information should be carefully briefed by their agency supervisor on this aspect of their work and told how to handle it.

In order to meet the credit earning requirements of the students' home institutions, TWC asks supervisors to assign no more than 20% clerical work to students. While it is understandable that every job requires a certain amount of clerical work, students should be assigned substantive projects, with a minimal amount of clerical tasks.

Part of the learning experience for students is to interact with other professionals in the workplace. Understanding office protocol and the manager-employee relationship is a crucial part of experiential education. There may be some circumstances where it makes sense for students to spend some time working from home however; working from home on a consistent basis does not achieve the mission of the program.

If, at any time, an agency supervisor is unhappy with the performance of a student, it is important to discuss this with the intern in a professional manner. The supervisor is encouraged to contact the Washington Center program advisor to discuss the situation. It may be necessary to arrange a special meeting of the three parties to resolve the problem. It may be the case that after several attempts to resolve the situation, the student is just not a good fit for the position. In this case, please notify the TWC program advisor and we will work to place the student in another internship. As the internship program is short, it is important that problems are addressed early on to make sure the 10 or 15-week program is valuable for both the student and the supervisor. For many students, this internship is their first professional work experience and he/she may not have a clear understanding of office protocol and the relationship between manager and employee. Supervisors should take this into consideration when communicating expectations.

TWC encourages students to communicate their concerns to the immediate supervisor about the type of work assigned or a need for more direction or feedback. If necessary, the program advisor will schedule a site visit with the student, intern supervisor and TWC program advisor to address the concerns.

Students are allowed to participate in out-of-town assignments. It is important that the intern tell his/her TWC program advisor, campus liaison and resident assistant when he/she will be out of town. The internship placement site is responsible for covering the student's travel expenses.

In an extreme emergency, where a student's health or safety are at risk, students or their agency supervisor should request ambulance service by dialing 911. If it is not an emergency, but the student still needs medical attention, The Washington Center provides students with resources to help them locate a medical clinic in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Students are required to have their own health insurance. TWC does not provide insurance to students.

Interns are expected to work four or four and a half days a week for fifteen weeks during the fall and spring semesters and ten weeks during the summer term. Students are not eligible for any vacation with the exception of holidays recognized by the placement site. If there is a special circumstance and the student needs to be absent from work, the student must discuss the situation in advance with both the intern supervisor and The Washington Center program advisor.

The Washington Center defers to the internship placement site's policy of time keeping. Some agencies do require interns to keep track of their time worked, others do not. Students who are receiving financial assistance from a placement organization will be required to submit timesheets to TWC.

All interns are expected to be at their internship site until the last day of The Washington Center internship program. Permission to leave early must be obtained from the intern's campus liaison in consultation with the intern's program advisor. The internship site supervisor must also approve any early departure.

The Washington Center relies on the placement site to provide reasonable accommodations for the student when and if requested. It is the student's responsibility to communicate these needs before arrival. We can help facilitate and/or provide information on different types of accommodations. For more information, please contact our Student Life Office at (202) 238-7942, or email disabilityservices@twc.edu

Should the student communicate difficulty balancing all of his/her responsibilities, the student should contact his/her TWC program advisor.

As students earn academic credit for their internship experience, the agency supervisor's role in the student evaluation is very important. TWC asks supervisors to complete two evaluations during the course of the semester. The first will be completed at the mid-term and the second during the final week of the internship. TWC has evaluation forms that will be provided by the student or can be downloaded from TWC's website (www.twc.edu). We ask supervisors to complete and return the evaluations in a timely manner. In addition, the TWC program advisor will schedule one to two site visits during the semester. This is a brief meeting between the program advisor, agency supervisor and the student. The individuals will discuss the goals and objectives of the internship and how the student is progressing in his/her achievement of such goals.

Many organizations use The Washington Center program as a recruitment tool. It is not unusual for students to be offered full-time employment upon completion of the internship. However, organizations have no obligation to hire interns upon completion of the program.