Students get up close at Staples

By Se´ J. Reed
Summer Forty-Niner
 

LOS ANGELES -- Security guards kept waving Matt Embrey through the security checkpoints. In his dark suit with a tiny pin on the lapel he looked the part of a Secret Service agent.

Embrey, however, is not a Secret Service agent. He is a junior at the University of New Hampshire. He is at the Democratic National Convention as  an intern, running errands for the online news service Pseudo.com.

Monday night he was waiting to hear President Clinton's speech, rather  than leaving the convention early to see the Rage against the Machine concert as  many college-age participants were.

"I'm not star struck," Embrey said, matter-of-factly, "but Rage won't ever get me a job."

John Joseph isn't star struck, either. The University of Mississippi senior  was working at the Shadow Convention, and Sunday night he was in the green room with Arianna Huffington and Bill Maher, the Shadow Convention's key players.

But Joseph switched back to the Staples Center as a volunteer handyman for the Alabama delegation.

"My old boss is working with the delegation and they needed help," he said.  "I might go back to the Shadow Convention later."

Embrey and Joseph are participants in a two-week program through the  Washington Center. The Washington Center, a Washington D.C.-based  institution for internships and academic seminars, has hosted the program at both the Republican and Democratic conventions since1984, according to Eugene Alpert, vice president for academic affairs at the center.

Any college student in good standing is eligible, although there is a limit of 200 participants. Currently, there are 125 different universities represented from almost all states.

The center sends letter to the presidents of most, if not all, two- and four-year colleges, Alpert said, and many students are nominated directly by their university's presidents.

The center employs two full-time staff members who worked for a year to secure placement for students with organizations at the convention.

Most are placed with media groups, such as Psuedo.com and The Weekly Standard, who supply the students' credentials for the convention The students do field work for the organizations.

"They're not internships," Alpert said. "The difference is that it is more volunteer-type work."

The access that students get depends the organization with which they are placed. It mostly provides students an opportunity to see what goes on and gives them an opportunity to network, Alpert said.

While both Embrey and Joseph had credentials to get them inside the Staples Center, others were limited to the press areas in the L.A. Convention Center.

Sheri Chang, a sophomore at Dominican University in Northern California, was assigned to work the entrance to The Weekly Standard's area, but she didn't mind.

"They are rotating the credentials so we all get a chance to get inside," Chang said.

Some of the students were upset that they weren't being given enough to do, she said. But no one had yet walked out like some students in the program did at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

"Some of these people are way too into it," Chang said. "This one girl keeps saying she's going to be president in 2016. I'm sorry, but that's just setting yourself up for disappointment."

Chang, a politics and pre-law major, said the convention has definitely changed her plans.

"Maybe politics isn't cut out for me after all. Networking just isn't my thing," she said.

Other students, like Adam Katz from the University of Maryland, seemed to be born to network.

Katz was able to talk his way into the VIP area, where he met ex-President Jimmy Carter.

"I asked him if I could have a picture and he told me he didn't have a camera," Katz said. "I told him I did."

While Chang said that she wished the convention would take a cue from the Shadow Convention and address more crucial issues, most of the students involved in the Washington Center's program felt the convention wasn't going to be just showmanship. At least they hoped it wouldn't be.

"I won't judge the convention until Thursday," Joseph said, "but I'm hoping it won't be like the Republican convention with an ‘illusion of inclusion.'"