By Nathan Palomares
The World Affairs Council of Orange County’s internship program is the backbone of the organization and its mission. Students and young professionals alike have the opportunity to conduct impactful research and work in an environment focused on international affairs and global politics, all while having access to thrilling events and networking opportunities with experts and speakers. Interns who have completed their internship at WACOC have gone on to prestigious opportunities and traveled to places they could not have imagined before interning for the council.
Welcome to the October edition of Where Are They Now? Series, in which we interviewed two former interns of the World Affairs Council of Orange County to learn more about what they have accomplished since leaving the council and how our internship program has set them up for success!
Cindy Tse, Programs Intern, 2022-2023
Since leaving the council, Cindy Tse has gained valuable experience as a volunteer coordinator at AmeriCorps and in various legal roles. She is currently working at Gibson Dunn, a law firm based in L.A., coordinating and reviewing contracts for its individual clients. As of last June, Tse earned her paralegal certificate.
Speaking about her internship experience with the World Affairs Council, Tse recalls the amazing opportunities to meet people that prepared her for her professional career.
“I got to meet a lot of interesting people,” Tse said. “Having that internship experience and kind of learning how to work with people who are more experienced and are older than me has prepared me for my current work.”
Tse’s favorite memory during her time with the Council was a travel conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. She was one of the interns selected to attend the young professionals event and recalls it being a great experience. Besides offering her experience, the internship program has been foundational to Tse’s career, catalyzing her focus on it and clarifying the future she envisions for herself.
“It made me feel a lot more realistic about my goals,” Tse said. “Attending those events and speaking with people who have worked in that field (International Relations) really helped me understand how I should create a trajectory to work in that industry.”
This exposure to industry insiders and seasoned professionals that the council’s internship program offers to its interns has made Tse realize just how many doors of opportunity have opened and the different paths she can take.
“You think about I.R. like, ‘wow, really glamorous, traveling, international lawyer championing human rights’, and yeah, there is that, but there’s also a lot of things in between,” Tse said. “But there’s so much more that goes into International Relations, and so meeting all these people who have worked in some aspect really showed me how big and how many options there are.”
Having experienced all that the council’s internship program can offer, Tse has advice for current and future interns.
“Really explore your options if you’re able to network and make those connections, and getting your face in front of them will help you open a lot of doors, and a lot of them have really good advice to share,” Tse said.
This includes keeping up to date and active on your LinkedIn, which Tse has recognized Jayne Herring, the President and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Orange County, as a “LinkedIn warrior”. Cindy Tse learned a lot as an intern and gained a wealth of experience that has helped her achieve the goals she has reached and will continue to achieve, all thanks to the World Affairs Council.
“The World Affairs Council is a great organization,” Tse said. “They have really great guest speakers and get really informed opinions. Just being educated is so, so, so important, so please always try to absorb everything you can.”
Kelsea Clemente, Membership Intern/External Affairs Officer, 2017-2018
Kelsea Clemente is currently in her third year of law school at UCI Law and has a post-grad job lined up in real estate finance at an M100 firm in Orange County. Her journey into law was not something she seriously considered during her undergrad; however, the COVID-19 pandemic led her to reassess her career plans.
“I originally wanted to go into nonprofit work, so that’s how I found myself working at the World Affairs Council, and it gave me a good sense of what working in a nonprofit is like,” Clemente said.
Clemente started as a membership intern and then transitioned to an external affairs office, where she focused on community outreach, marketing, and targeted work.
“Working in that role really gave me a lot of valuable substantive experience,” Clemente said. “I was really able to make it my own and take ownership, and it really pushed me out of my comfort zone.”
This idea of being pushed out of one’s comfort zone was a big takeaway from Clemente’s experience with the council that has helped shape her current career goals.
“In hindsight, it gave me so many valuable skills that I didn’t really see in the moment,” Clemente said. “It’s like just pushing me out of my comfort zone, being in a role that I’d never really been in before.”
This insight from Clemente highlights one of the goals of the World Affairs Council’s internship program: to offer interns opportunities to take on new challenges and responsibilities that teach them valuable career skills they can carry with them throughout their lives. For current and future interns at the council, Clemente offers advice echoed by other former interns.
“Being in this internship, you’re in a really unique position where you’re placed in these rooms with just really incredible and accomplished people, and just absorb and take in as much as you can,” Clemente said.
As our interview came to a close, Clemente offered a piece of advice to every intern who will walk through that door at the World Affairs Council.
“The advice that I would give is to just talk to people; you have to network, but not in a transactional way, but really just to learn and see what’s out there,” Clemente said.
