By: Brittany Candrian Richman

(Pictured from left to right: Michael Candrian, Amy Candrian, Joy Candrian, President Bush, Brittany Candrian Richman, Brian Richman)

I made a promise to myself as I sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the last day of my Washington Seminar experience– that no matter what happened when I went back to BYU that I would return to D.C. after graduation. I kept that promise to myself and it changed my life.

Little did I know that the connections I made during my Washington Seminar program would land me in places I never thought possible. The summer after I graduated I found myself in Las Vegas, Nevada working as an event coordinator for the Bush-Cheney ’04 re-election campaign. My connection in getting me the job: a fellow Washington Seminar intern who I’d become friends with over our fall semester together. There were five other staffers who had recently graduated from BYU, and together we spent countless hours gearing up for campaign rallies with Vice President Cheney, First Lady Laura Bush, and President Bush himself. As a communications major, and someone who grew up in Utah, politics was still somewhat foreign to me, so this experience provided something I’ll be forever grateful for — a crash course into the world of politics. Shortly after the campaign, I was offered a job in Secretary Leavitt’s Public Affairs office, working as a press aide. My connection in getting me the job: someone I had met during Washington Seminar. At the Department of Health and Human Services, I learned the value of being in the right place at the right time. The Surgeon General’s speechwriting and press staffers all quit shortly after I came on board. Since my boss knew I could write, she gave me a portion of the Surgeon General’s speeches and press affairs to handle. Again, with this experience I was provided a crash course into the world of speechwriting and working under pressure. It helped train me for what was to come.

A year after arriving back in D.C., I received a call from another friend I’d met through Washington Seminar. He asked if I’d be interested in working for President Bush in his speechwriting office at the White House. The hours would be long and the work demanding, but there was no way I could turn it down. For the next year and a half there was no escaping my job. I was on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week, but it was the experience of a lifetime and I vowed I would stick it out until 2009—the end of the Bush Administration. Of course, as I’ve learned the hard way, nothing ever turns out like you plan. A year and a half into the job I met my future husband who was attending dental school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. A few months later we were engaged—on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial—and I remembered the promise I had made to myself three years earlier. I learned several valuable lessons from my time in D.C.: 1) When professors and advisors tell you that “networking is key” – take them seriously. You never know where your connections will take you, and 2) Always keep your promises.