Over the past year, Eric Feely, a senior majoring in Middle Eastern Studies, with concentrations in History, Arabic, and Public Administration, has had the opportunity to participate in several virtual internships in the Washington D.C. area. A winner of the Ada Belle Winthrop-King Scholarship and David L. Boren Scholarship, both funding overseas language study, Eric has tried to make the most of his time during the pandemic by gaining relevant work experience while awaiting permission to travel abroad.

In fall 2020, Eric was selected as a National Security and Intelligence Analysis intern on the Syria Team at the Institute for the Study of War. In this role, Eric conducted open-source intelligence to collect, process, analyze, and synthesize intelligence from native language sources in Syria. Eric focused most of his research on tactical, operational, and strategic objectives of states like Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel and the Syrian regime and non-state actors or proxies like ISIL, Jabhat al Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, and other opposition groups.

Using proprietary software programs, he and other interns on the team typically spent the first half of the day collecting data from news articles. Relevant information in these articles was then processed into events called SIGACTs or “significant activity.” SIGACTs are created to convey “someone or -thing did something to someone or -thing else in X place in Y province in Z country.” Each SIGACT is then located geographically using the Military Grid Reference System.

Following the collection and processing phase, interns analyze several data points and craft assessments or “blurbs” of what is happening on the ground. Blurbs are usually a paragraph long and can be as granular as tracking movements of specific military units or as broad as describing the strategic goals of states. In each assessment, interns are encouraged to provide forecasts of what they think will happen next and receive feedback from their mentors on how to improve their analytical skills. In short, interns are at the forefront of research and analysis and are encouraged to provide the unique insights they gain from tracking their respective conflicts on a day to day basis.

In spring 2021, Eric interned in the Office of Regional and Multilateral Affairs with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) at the U.S. State Department. In this role, Eric drafted briefing papers detailing U.S. policy towards China to ambassadors and embassy officials from ten different MENA countries for NEA’s Acting Assistant Secretary. He also organized and coordinated virtual meetings with foreign dignitaries from a range of Middle Eastern countries as well as France.

Additionally, Eric conducted research on various topics like India’s and Pakistan’s relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as energy production, consumption, imports, and exports from 18 MENA countries. This latter project supported a policy proposal offering guidance on using natural gas as a transition fuel to renewable forms of energy. While the internship began in March, the application process, including a background check and security clearance, started much earlier in May or June of the previous year.

Finally, in summer 2021, Eric was selected to intern with the Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute. As a member of the Salafi-Jihadi Movement team, Eric worked in the Horn of Africa/ East Africa portfolio. He was responsible for tracking Salafi-Jihadi activity in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Mozambique with a particular focus on al Shabaab in Somalia, and the Islamic State’s Central African Province in Mozambique.

During his time with CTP, Eric contributed to bi-weekly publications in CTP’s Africa File, for example to articles titled ‘Ethiopia crisis spreads beyond Tigray’ and ‘Terrorism’s rising cost in Africa’ and updated CTP’s Area of Operations map for al Shabaab in Somalia, scheduled to be published later this fall. Eric credits his experience at the Institute for the Study of War for being selected for this internship, as ISW and CTP are sister organizations which collaborate. “I was really able to hit the ground running with CTP because the day-to-day workflow was very similar to ISW”, he said.

For Eric, time management and staying focused were the biggest challenges in a virtual environment. For the most part, his day-to-day duties required him to work on his own with little to no supervision. He was expected to take the initiative to refine his assessments and do sustained work on larger projects. Eric admitted that “this was tough to do at times while sitting at my desk in my bedroom in Tallahassee.”

However, Eric gave credit to the virtual environment as the main reason why he was able to participate in these opportunities in the first place. “Some unpaid internships can offer great opportunities to gain relevant experience and expand your professional and social networks, but housing, food, and flights to and from Washington D.C. can make the in-person experience really expensive”, he said. “It becomes a significant investment, especially for someone with limited resources”.

Eric stressed the importance of casting a wide net and applying early and often, especially for internships with federal agencies that have application deadlines 8-12 months in advance of the start date. He also emphasized persistence when applying to internships with limited experience. “When I got my first internship offer at the Institute for the Study of War, I was a senior undergrad, with no connections and literally zero work experience for the position I was applying for. Outside of a good GPA in my major, ‘veterinary technician’ (a part-time college job) was at the top of my resume. In the beginning, I applied for 25-30 intern positions a semester, most of which I never heard back from.”

Eric noted that even as many virtual positions are returning to in-person only, students can still find virtual, part-time internships (10-15 hours weekly) like the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) to gain work experience while still taking classes. Applications for VSFS are accepted every July.