Many undergraduates consider pursuing a career in US public policy but are uncertain about how to test their fit and get a foot in the door. This post provides advice and highlights relevant opportunities.

Summary

I. Work experience, networking, and skill development

• Mindset and goals: To prepare for a public policy career, undergraduates tend to benefit most from testing their fit for career options in (and beyond) policy and investing in their professional development.
• Internships: Interning in DC is typically the best way to test your fit for policy work and to further your professional development for policy work. Prioritize spending a summer or semester interning in DC, ideally in Congress, a federal agency, or a think tank.
• On-campus work: Engage with and work for campus institutions related to public policy and international affairs, including university-affiliated research institutes. Research assistantships (RA) can help build connections with professors for recommendation letters and gain research and policy experience.
• Fellowships: Policy fellowships are among the best entryways into policy work, offering many benefits like first-hand policy experience, funding, training, mentorship, and networking. While many require an advanced degree, some are open to current undergraduates or recent graduates.
• Networking and mentorship: Many people secure policy jobs in DC through personal networks rather than traditional job postings. To build a strong network, pursue entry-level DC opportunities like internships and build relationships with potential mentors, such as policy professionals, professors, and students and alumni of your school (e.g. by reaching out through cold emails or LinkedIn).
• Skill development: College offers opportunities to develop many policy-relevant skills. Enhance your writing by practicing outside of college, getting feedback (ideally from non-academics), and creating a high-quality policy writing sample. Develop research skills through research assistant roles, internships, independent research, policy-relevant coursework, and research-oriented classes. Networking skills are also crucial and can be trained. Other potentially valuable assets include public speaking, foreign languages, and technical skills, such as understanding the fundamentals of machine learning, microbiology, or economics.

II. Academics

• What to study: When choosing classes, consider public policy, political science/government, international relations, economics, history, and—if you’re interested in technology-related policy—relevant technical classes. Consider also writing a thesis (and other academic assignments) about policy-relevant questions. But don’t rely solely on your academic education; proactively learn about crucial policy issues through newsletters, books, podcasts, and other resources.
• Grades: Good college grades can be important for early-career policy opportunities, like internships, entry-level jobs, and graduate school. So, aim for good grades (>3.5 GPA), while being mindful of the opportunity costs. Remember that good grades are sometimes necessary but rarely sufficient to land an entry-level policy opportunity.
• Graduate school: Most policy professionals eventually complete a graduate degree, but we generally recommend first working for 1-3 years after college. As an undergraduate, you can begin considering the type of graduate degree you’d like to pursue (e.g. a policy master’s, law school, or a PhD), evaluating potential schools/programs, and speaking with current graduate students or alumni.

III. Other advice

• Campus student groups: Consider joining policy-relevant groups—like Model United Nations, debating, political groups, or student publications focusing on public policy or current affairs—while being aware of the time commitments involved.
• Scholarships and funding opportunities: Many universities offer financial support for undergraduates to gain (policy-relevant) professional experience, including via research projects and unpaid internships. Government scholarship-for-service programs (e.g. the Department of Defense’s SMART Scholarship, and the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service) cover tuition costs and offer government employment opportunities but require a service commitment. Some philanthropic organizations also provide professional development funding for undergraduates.
• Security clearance: Most executive branch roles relevant to national security require a security clearance. As a college student, you can sometimes get a clearance through an internship, and improve your chances and speed up the future clearance process by avoiding the use of illegal drugs (including drugs that are legal locally but illegal federally, such as marijuana in many US states), gathering relevant information early, and considering other clearance-relevant factors that could impact you.
• Advice for students from underrepresented backgrounds: Don’t be afraid to seek out successful policy practitioners with similar backgrounds for mentorship and advice—many are enthusiastic to help a young newcomer overcome barriers to enter the field. Apply ambitiously and widely to opportunities, even if you don’t meet all eligibility criteria. Finally, research and apply for internship and fellowship programs designed for your strengths and background.
• Stay politically up-to-date: Make a habit of skimming daily stories from major outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post, along with policy-focused outlets like Politico, Foreign Policy, or The Hill (many of which also offer news via podcast). This can keep you conversant on political and policy debates and help you test your fit for policy: if you find political news consistently tedious, that might signal misalignment with a policy career.

Work experience, networking, and skill development

Mindset and goals

To prepare for a public policy career, undergraduates tend to benefit most from (1) exploring career options in (and beyond) policy and (2) investing in their policy-relevant professional development. Being mindful of these two goals can help you understand the motivation for and prioritize among the other recommendations in this post. Contributing directly to policy development can be an important goal, but for those early in their career, it’s generally more important to explore and develop professionally.

Exploration

College is a great time to explore career options and test your fit for (different types of) policy work. By experimenting with various classes, internships, extracurriculars, and similar opportunities, you can learn more about whether you’d enjoy and succeed in policy work. 

Even if you are confident that public policy is a promising career focus, policy is a vast field, so you should still explore your fit for specific

1. institutions (e.g. think tanks, Congress, or the executive branch),
2. types of work (e.g. research, advocacy, or program management),
3. policy areas (e.g. particular topics in AI, biosecurity, or cyber),
4. levers in government (e.g. budgeting and appropriations, regulatory policy, diplomacy, government procurement, or standard-setting), and
5. types of workplace (e.g. working at a small team in a new organization, or at a large established organization).

Affording college and graduate school can be a challenge, so this may also be a good time to explore policy-relevant scholarships and fellowships for technology policy.

Professional development

College also provides opportunities for gaining policy-relevant experiences, knowledge, skills, networks, and credentials (see our professional development guide for more details). These help you get a foot in the door and make you more competitive for future policy opportunities, like jobs, fellowships, and graduate school.

Most undergraduates interested in policy should likely invest in fairly general professional development and explore different types of policy work, institutions, or issues. This can mean (1) prioritizing policy experiences that are broadly valuable for policy work even though they generally don’t allow you to specialize (e.g. congressional internships), and (2) pursuing diverse policy experiences for exploration (e.g. by interning in a federal agency and a think tank). But specializing early, while riskier, can provide a competitive advantage in niche policy areas for those with strong research skills and sustained topic interest.

Internships 

See our policy internship guide for advice and resources, including on where and how to apply for internships—both in and outside of Washington, DC. 

In brief, policy internships are among the best ways to test your fit for policy careers and develop professionally. Given these benefits, if you’re considering a career in US policy, prioritize completing at least one (DC-based) policy internship while in college or after graduation.

Short-term policy programs (typically 2-3 days to 6 weeks) offered by think tanks and nonprofits can also be a valuable, low-cost way to start testing your fit for policy work and building initial credentials and networks before pursuing longer internship commitments.

On-campus work: research and teaching assistantships (RA/TA)

Working part-time during the semester as an RA can be a great way to gain research experience, get to know a professor who may provide you with a recommendation letter, and also gain research/policy experience (if the work is policy-relevant).

You may want to consider RAing for a professor that has first-hand experience and relationships in DC policymaking institutions, since they may be able to connect you with full-time opportunities once you graduate. RAing in a relevant technical lab (e.g. on AI or biology research) can also be a strong option, particularly if you’re interested in science and technology policy. Doing so is helpful if you might want to pursue technical work in the future, and it demonstrates technical skills/knowledge that can help differentiate you from other candidates without this experience (even for policy positions that typically don’t require technical experience).

RA work during the semester typically has a lower opportunity cost compared to summer opportunities, since a lot of students will have limited policy-relevant opportunities during the school year but can use their summers to get more direct experience (e.g. via internships).

If working as a TA trades off against other opportunities (e.g. internships, being an RA, independent research/learning), then it is probably not the best use of time. The most common exceptions to this are (a) if your professor is well-connected in DC and it would be valuable to develop a relationship with them, or (b) it’s a relevant technical class (e.g. deep learning) where being a TA would substantially improve your understanding of the material.

Get involved with (and try to work for) relevant institutions on your campus, such as your college’s international affairs/public policy school (if it exists) or a university-affiliated policy research institute. See an illustrative list of a few example institutions in the footnote.¹

Policy fellowships

There are many different policy fellowships—see our policy fellowship guide—aiming to help people from different backgrounds and career stages gain first-hand policy experience. These programs can provide opportunities to work for US executive agencies, Congress, or think tanks. Other common fellowship benefits include funding, training, mentorship, and networking.

Policy fellowships are among the best entryways into policy work. So, consider which fellowships you’re eligible for and suit your career interests, and apply to those. Consider also if there are things you can do now to become a more competitive applicant (e.g. getting relevant credentials, developing a clearer picture of your target policy career).

Many policy fellowships require having an advanced degree (i.e. a master’s or doctorate), but there are some opportunities open to current undergraduates—like the Paragon Fellowship, Google’s Public Policy Fellowship, the Boren Awards²,  the Equitech Scholars Program, and Harvard Kennedy School’s Public Policy Leadership Conference—or recent graduates. In particular, consider the following fellowships for upcoming or recent college graduates, taken from this database:

Fellowship	Short description
Horizon Fellowship	The junior track involves a 6-12 month position at DC think tanks to work on AI or biosecurity policy. (This website is a project of the Horizon Institute for Public Service, which also runs the Horizon Fellowship.)
STPI Science Policy Fellowship	A 2-year full-time science and technology policy fellowship working on projects for US executive branch offices, like the White House OSTP.
Scoville Peace Fellowship	A 6-9 month full-time security policy fellowship with DC-based NGOs for early-career college or master’s graduates.
TechCongress Fellowship	A 10-month full-time congressional fellowship focused on technology policy for early-career individuals. Junior TechCongress fellows typically have several years of work experience, but they occasionally accept recent college graduates and those with only 1-2 years of experience.
RAND Technology and Security Policy Fellowship	A 1-3 year full-time or part-time fellowship with RAND, focused on AI policy, open to candidates from all experience levels, from undergraduate students to mid-career professionals.
Carnegie Gaither Junior Fellows Program	1-year nomination-based fellowship for graduating seniors and recent graduates to work as research assistants to Carnegie’s senior scholars.
Princeton CITP Emerging Scholars in Technology Policy	2-year tech policy research position with coursework and mentoring at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

Networking and mentorship 

See our networking in policy guide for advice and resources on why and how to build your professional network in DC. We hope this guide creates a fairer playing field by helping you to make meaningful professional connections, regardless of whether you already have personal contacts in DC.

In brief, policy, like many other sectors, is highly network-driven, and many jobs are never advertised publicly but rather filled with trusted contacts from the organization’s network. To build your network, you can pursue entry-level opportunities like internships, invest in networking as a skill, leverage existing relationships with professors and other potential mentors, and use tools like LinkedIn.

Skill development

See our policy skills and attributes guide for an overview of abilities important to success in policy careers and how to develop these abilities. 

In brief, among the most important skills are writing, collaboration, networking, research, entrepreneurialism, and strong interpersonal skills. College offers great opportunities to develop and demonstrate these policy-relevant skills that will help you secure internships or job opportunities and make you more effective as a policy professional.

Academics

In college, you can gain knowledge about specific policy topics, or policy processes and institutions generally. But your college education alone likely won’t prepare you sufficiently well for your field(s) of interest. Take the initiative and time to learn about these issues on your own, such as via conversations and books, podcasts, newsletters, etc.

To improve your understanding of policy topics, seek out experts (e.g. relevant professors, policy professionals). Talking to people is often more important—and easier to neglect—than just reading articles, and conversations with experts are particularly effective to determine what to read, who else to talk to, and what opportunities to pursue.

What to study

A key factor in choosing what to study is how much it will contribute to your (policy-relevant) professional development (skills, knowledge, credentials, etc.). This applies to choosing schools³, classes, internships, and workshops or conferences.

While we offer some broad suggestions below, please consider your intellectual interests when making these choices, since you’ll be more motivated to learn if you’re interested in a topic, and policy jobs do not typically require candidates to have completed specific majors/minors.

To further your professional development for policy work, your classes should generally do the following:

1. Allow you to demonstrate your interest in policy. This can help when applying for jobs, for example, by highlighting these experiences in your cover letters and job interviews. 
2. Help you develop policy-relevant skills, such as writing, public speaking, etc.
3. Allow you to work on policy-relevant projects or writing/work samples you can include in your resume.
4. Teach you basic domain knowledge to help you think and speak in an informed manner about policy, history, and government.

Some majors/minors/classes to consider: 

• If you want to work on science and technology policy and are in…
  • a STEM undergrad, pick some policy classes if possible (e.g. technology policy, technology and society, introduction to international relations)
  • a social science undergrad, pick some technology classes if possible (e.g. computer science, biology). 

• Potentially relevant subjects include (but are not limited to):
  • Qualitative: public policy, international relations, government, law, economics, history
  • Quantitative: economics, statistics (especially for data analysis at think tanks)
  • For AI policy: technology policy, computer science, machine learning, etc.
  • For biosecurity policy: public health, epidemiology, microbiology, etc.

Don’t consider school your only means of learning. Take time to read what interests you outside of class and go deep on that. For instance, go through relevant reading lists or participate in online courses via platforms like Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, or Udemy (e.g. these courses on AI governance, biosecurity, and arms control).

Be deliberate about the classes you take, what you want to get out of them, and how much time you put into classes vs other activities. Often, not all the materials covered in classes will be relevant to your professional future or personal development.

Consider writing a thesis (and other academic assignments) about policy-relevant questions. If your school makes the thesis optional, consider carefully the significant opportunity cost (and be aware that, at least anecdotally, a fair number of folks who write an optional thesis later regret this choice). A thesis is less important if you don’t aim to work in academia (a possibility your academic advisors might understandably underweight), but it’s nevertheless an opportunity to learn and write about a critical topic of your choice.

Grades

College grades matter relatively little in policy job applications. But good grades are somewhat more important for early-career policy opportunities—internships, entry-level jobs, graduate school—since they are a clear signal that can distinguish you from other candidates. So, grades matter (much) more in applications for recent college graduates than for those with multiple years of work experience.

A reasonable heuristic for college students interested in policy work is to aim for good grades while being mindful of the opportunity cost. You don’t need a 4.0 GPA to succeed in policy, but try not to fall below a 3.5. Generally, it’s likely not worth the effort to spend dozens of hours on a class when the difference to your class GPA is marginal, especially if this time could have gone to more applied work instead (internships, etc.) that’s more relevant to your career. While exceeding some grade threshold is often necessary, good grades are rarely sufficient for career advancement. 

One possible concrete target is to aim for college grades that make you a competitive applicant for the top policy master’s programs. Undergraduate GPA plays an important role in admissions decisions, but you don’t need to have been a straight-A student to get into the top programs. Many top policy schools report an average incoming GPA of around 3.6-3.7 with fairly wide margins—meaning many applicants are accepted with a GPA below 3.5—but this includes many applicants with several years of work experience. Recent college graduates will often need somewhat higher grades to gain admission. For less selective policy schools, a GPA above 3.0 can be sufficient. In comparison, the top law schools are more competitive, so if you’re aiming for a law degree, you’ll want to aim for a >3.8 GPA.⁴ Since most financial aid is offered to the strongest applicants, having good college grades helps not only with admissions but also with receiving more financial aid for graduate school. 

To achieve better grades while also having time for other opportunities, consider taking fewer classes. Many of your college classes won’t be directly applicable or useful for your career and you may benefit more from spending the time taking advantage of other opportunities. So, think carefully about how you prioritize your time in college, including how much time you want to spend improving your grades relative to doing other valuable activities like extracurriculars. 

Consider also taking easier, higher-GPA classes, subject to these caveats. Note that certain graduate programs intentionally look for high grades in specific hard classes (e.g. real analysis for economics PhD programs); if you already have thoughts on which graduate programs you might want to pursue, make sure to look into whether these programs have specific entry requirements that you can work towards during college. 

Graduate school

Most policy professionals complete a graduate degree at some point. From a policy perspective, our general advice is for most college graduates to work for 1-3 years for career exploration and professional development before starting a graduate degree. Still, if you are already very interested in policy as an undergraduate, you may already begin reflecting on what type of graduate degree you’re most interested in, which schools you may want to apply to, and begin talking with current graduate students or alumni from relevant schools. 

1. Policy master’s programs: Read this guide for more information on why, when, where, and how to get a policy master’s degree (e.g. in public policy or international relations). Getting a policy master’s degree should be the default choice if you’re interested in policy work, since these degrees tend to provide the best balance of benefits over costs for those wishing to advance their policy careers.
2. Law school: Read this guide for advice on why and how to apply for law school, and how to secure funding. Law school can be a reasonable alternative to a policy master’s degree for a policy career (see footnote for details).⁵ 
3. PhDs: Getting a PhD is often very costly and typically unnecessary for the great majority of policy jobs. As such, we generally recommend against doing a PhD with the intent of working in policy (see footnote for details when doing a PhD can make sense for policy work).⁶ 

Other advice

Campus student groups

Most colleges have active campus groups focused on public policy or international affairs. They allow students to engage with policy topics, network with other policy-interested students, and build relevant skills, such as writing and public speaking.

But these on-campus engagements are generally less helpful for launching a policy career than getting professional experience through internships, relevant RA positions, etc. It’s easy for policy-interested students to over-invest in campus student groups, so don’t feel like you need to spend tons of time on clubs, especially if you wouldn’t enjoy this or otherwise find it worthwhile.

Consider joining policy-relevant clubs (while being mindful of the time commitment) such as:

1. Model United Nations (MUN)
2. Debating
3. Student publications oriented towards public policy, politics, or current affairs. 
4. Campus groups or national groups working on applied “policy cases”, like crafting policy for a specific stakeholder, similar to a student consulting group.

Another option is getting involved with campus political groups. This may allow you to build politically-relevant experience, networks, knowledge, skills, and credentials, which can help you learn about or get future political opportunities (e.g. roles on political campaigns or in Congress). But you should consider carefully whether to affiliate yourself with partisan groups since this may also limit your flexibility and future career options.

Scholarships and funding opportunities

Financing college is a struggle for many, making it harder for students from low-income backgrounds to prioritize exploring careers in policy. Fortunately, many universities financially support undergraduates to gain relevant professional experience, such as via semester in DC programs or funding for research projects, travel grants, scholarships for unpaid internships, etc. Check to see if your university offers such funding opportunities for policy-relevant opportunities, and consider applying for support if so.

One great resource on securing scholarships and financial aid is the 2023 book The Underdog’s Guide to Scholarships: Get Big Money for Your Dream College.

Some government scholarship-for-service programs offered by US federal agencies are open to undergraduates (while more are aimed at graduate students). These typically cover most or all of college tuition, are an established credential, and also offer employment opportunities, such as internships and jobs. However, there is a big catch: these programs often involve a multiple-year service requirement, during which you have to continue working at the agency; if you leave early, you will have to pay back some or all of the scholarship money you have received. Before accepting such a scholarship, consider carefully the commitment this entails. The scholarship-for-service programs for undergraduates we’re aware of include (program details in footnotes):

• Department of Defense: SMART Scholarship⁷
• All of government (cybersecurity work): CyberCorps Scholarship for Service⁸
• All of government: Boren Awards⁹

Security clearances

See our security clearance guide for advice and resources on how to improve your chances of getting a security clearance in the future and speed up the process.  

As a college student, there are several things you can do: Internships in national security-relevant government agencies can be a great way to get a security clearance already during college. In addition, consider (1) avoiding the use of illegal drugs (including drugs that are legal locally but illegal federally, such as marijuana in many US states), (2) starting early to gather relevant information (e.g. where you lived and traveled to, employers, your schools, foreign contacts), (3) looking into other clearance-relevant factors that could impact you, and (4) registering for the Selective Service by age 25 if you’re male.

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Footnotes