NSA Takes the Hill

This summer, I had the privilege of interning with the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), one of the best non-profits in DC. A CPI employee took us to lunch on one of my first weeks out there. As we ate, he asked me what I was studying, and began shaking his head when I said the liberal arts. “At least get a degree in something useful, like economics.” When I laughed and told him I planned on sticking with it, he wished me luck trying to find a job in D.C. 

A month later, I received my first of three job offers for the summer. In my last week, multiple CPI employees asked me if I knew any other NSA students who were interested in working for them. 

My point isn’t that I did well in D.C. I knew less about US Senate procedure, upcoming bills and SCOTUS cases, and famous politicians than anyone else, and I still excelled overall. My point is that NSA gives you the adaptability, the work ethic, and the biblical morals to thrive in D.C more than any political science degree can. 

NSA gives you the adaptability, the work ethic, and the biblical morals to thrive in D.C more than any political science degree can. 

When you’re in the trenches of NSA classes, it is easy to wonder if your work is actually profitable. Whether you’re humming the Mixolydian scale to yourself, staring blankly at an unintelligible passage from Plutarch, or wandering through the arboretum, searching for a single dragonfly to draw for your natural history journal, there’s a little voice in the back of your head, whispering, “But how will this help me get a job?”

We’ve all heard the same talking points from faculty, recruiters, NSA ads, and convocation speakers, that the liberal arts education teaches you how to learn, it gives you a good work ethic, and it makes you a better leader that will shape culture faithfully. 

It wasn’t until this summer that I fully realized they weren’t kidding. When I began my internship with the Conservative Partnership Institute in D.C., I knew far less about the inner workings of D.C. than the other interns there—they were all political science majors, they understood the ins and outs of the legislation process, and most were going into law school. By all accounts, I was behind everyone else. But while the first two weeks were a steep learning curve, NSA taught me how to overcome steep learning curves. When we were asked to research upcoming bills, I didn’t instinctively ask ChatGPT to summarize it for me. Whenever our boss left the room, I didn’t go home early, gossip about D.C. drama, or curl up under my desk and doomscroll on TikTok (yes, this happened regularly). 

While there were challenging assignments that CPI gave me, nothing was as hard as pulling an all-nighter for Old English papers, or sketching a Western Painted Turtle at two in the morning for natural history. No meeting I had was as stressful as standing up in front of the school for a declamation. Learning to speak confidently in history recitation helped me hold conversation while escorting staffers to their meetings. It turns out that everything you’re being told about the liberal arts is true. This education teaches you how to learn, and that is more useful than the political science classes teaching you the bare minimum political trivia required to get a D.C. job. The pituitary gland and the perfect passive participle did not help me this last summer, but the hours I spent learning them prepared me more than any Schoolhouse Rock degree would have.

It turns out that everything you’re being told about the liberal arts is true. This education teaches you how to learn, and that is more useful than the political science classes teaching you the bare minimum political trivia required to get a D.C. job.

But it wasn’t only the skill of learning that NSA helped me with—the work ethic NSA forced me to adopt set me apart far more than I had expected. D.C. is full of ambitious people, but very few of them have the work ethic to act on their ambition. Even the students I met from the most prestigious schools in the country did not have the self-control to go full throttle on a task until it was done. Regular Instagram breaks were required. The ability to make yourself continue working, even when you don’t want to, is a rare treasure in workers our age. 

I received that first job offer after I carried a tray of food from the CPI building to a legislative staffer meeting, because someone forgot to load the food into the Uber. That was it. Doing what I believed to be the bare minimum was enough to get me a full-time offer for my first job in politics. A task that, at NSA, would be the easiest part of my day, made me stand out from the pack. The work ethic required to get Picta Dicta is enough to get you a full-time job in D.C. 

But most importantly, NSA students can thrive in D.C. because of the Christian culture that NSA produces in its students. When my bosses found out I was not yet 21, they assumed that I had a fake ID and would be drinking on the weekends. All they asked was that I not do it during CPI business hours. Even in the Christian conservative circles (the only circles I relegated myself to), younger Republicans have tried to foster a spirit of edgy rebellion against the Left’s strict moral code. It is expected you drink, have a constant drip of nicotine into your bloodstream, swear just enough to upset prudish Baptists, and consider yourself well-read after the one book you’ve completed is Plato’s Republic. 

And while the conservative cocktail hours have a certain appeal, they pale in comparison to the metric tons of food given out during the Grace Agenda block party. 20-year-old interns drinking Coronas while listening to Kanye can’t compete with the saints raising their hands and singing the Doxology. Your favorite Daily Wire host still won’t give you as much practical wisdom as Phaedrus’s fables. 

There are many conservatives who recognize that the D.C. culture must be shaped, but they do not have a good culture to compare it to.

Because of this, they create a culture whose only principle is that it must anger the Left. The conservative movement needs young workers who are ready to shape culture, and an NSA education is better preparation than any other school in America.