Nicole Mattea
By Zoë Eitel
Nicole Mattea considers herself, first and foremost, a writer, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from her history of internships. As a student in the Writing and Rhetoric program, Nicole has pursued internships that utilize her minors in International Politics and Women and Gender Studies while also allowing her writing skills to shine.
This has meant an internship with Sen. Dick Durbin, writing bill summaries and drafting letters for his office, one with the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce crafting social media posts for different businesses and organizations, and her current internship with The Chicago Council on Global Affairs where she is a Women, Peace and Security Intern. Nicole works on independent research—such as her current project researching the correlation between gun violence, gang violence and gendered violence, worldwide, in the U.S. and in Chicago—and is co-writing an op-ed with her supervisor on women’s social movements.
“I like my major being focused in writing, but I specifically have been going after internships that are based in politics,” Nicole says.
Women, Peace and Security Intern at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
BA Writing and Rhetoric 2020
Nicole has chosen this combination because she wants to pursue writing in the nontraditional sense of politics. She was particularly drawn to the internship at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs because it is such a highly sought after organization for those going into a political field and it is focused on women’s issues.
“Making connections with other students who are in the same position as you is very underrated in terms of the internship experience, but I feel like it’s by far one of the best parts.”
“Getting an internship that specifically focuses on work with women is really rare, especially when you’re not pursuing counseling or a master’s degree,” she says.
These internships have helped Nicole learn about different types of writing that aren’t feasibly taught in a classroom, like an organization’s emails, short-term research project materials and office memos.
“There’s only so much you can learn in a classroom, especially when it comes to writing,” Nicole says. “It’s just stuff that isn’t relevant to a classroom setting, so it isn’t something that you would learn, but it’s really important in the job field.”
As someone who has done internships where she was the only intern and others where she worked with lots of other interns, Nicole says she preferred the latter because of the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from the others at her level.
