This spring, fifteen undergraduate students in the Weatherhead Economics Society (WES) at Case Western Reserve University, traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with representatives from the private and public sector.
“The D.C. trip was one of the best experiences I’ve had in college to date,” says Brooke Hathhorn, a third-year student with a double major in mathematics and economics. “Getting to meet research assistants and economists across all sectors—academic, think tank, government and private—made me realize how many options are open to me after graduation and motivated me to explore new career paths and fields of research within economics.”
President of WES and fourth-year student, Rebecca Schneirov, took the lead on planning the trip with the help of the WES executive board members.
Schneirov, who will graduate this spring with bachelor’s degrees in economics and statistics, and a full-time position lined up at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, says the trip was planned to help her peers with professional development skills and networking with alumni and others in the field.
On the first evening the students arrived, they met with two research assistants from the American Enterprise Institute––one who works in domestic policy and the other as a research assistant for economic research.
“We talked about what led them to working at the AEI and what their work looks like on a day-to-day basis,” Schneirov says. “They also both spoke to us about their future plans.”
Over the next two days, students networked with more professionals––talking with employees from Amazon AWS Skills Center and touring the facility, chatting with economists from the American Institute for Research and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics––and they met up with Susan Helper, who is the Frank Tracy Carlton Professor of Economics at Weatherhead School of Management. Helper is currently in D.C. as an economist at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and has had previous experience working on the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA).
“We talked with her about the different roles she’s had in the CEA and OMB and learned how these have differed,” Schneirov says.
Among Schneirov’s favorite visits was with research assistants from the Brookings Institution.
“In the summer I will be working as a research assistant on the regional economics team at the Chicago Fed,” she says. “Hearing them talk about their work and seeing how passionate they were made me so excited to start on my own research. It was really encouraging.”
During the visit, students also toured the city, seeing notable places like the Library of Congress and the Washington Monument.
“Overall, the trip made me very excited for my future career,” adds Hathhorn. “It was so fun to deepen existing friendships, make new connections, and grow the incredible community in the Department of Economics."