By Anna Skinner
Christian Mills of Westfield participated in a paid intern program at the Statehouse from Dec. 28 until March 10.
Mills took photos of all pages that passed through the Statehouse and completed miscellaneous tasks around the office.
The IUPUI sophomore said he gained valuable experience from the program.
“I think I’ve learned a great deal more about the legislative process, despite the transparency between legislators and the community. A lot of times people don’t have incentive or don’t realize how easy it is to get that information,” Mills said. “Apart from professional skills, I learned a lot more about how our government works and where our tax payer dollars go.”
Mills, 22, is a marketing major and graduated from Carmel High School in 2012.
“I think there are a lot of fairly easily transferrable skills you develop from working in an office. There are a lot of community skills and working with other people and learning to adapt and be flexible with scheduling,” Mills said of his internship and what he hopes to do with his marketing major. “It wouldn’t be that far of a leap as far as working with senators to working with clients to make sure everything they want done gets done timely and efficiently.”
Mills said his favorite experience was interacting with the kids that came through the Statehouse as pages, from seventh grade to seniors in high school.
“A lot of the kids had very unique viewpoints on how things should get done,” he said. “It was very enjoyable to see how a younger viewpoint solves some of the issues that went on throughout the Statehouse. We introduced them to the legislative process, gave them a tour of the Statehouse and we took them up to see an example of what a normal session day looks like.”
