UNA-USA Intern Reflection – Max Kolda

Hi, my name is Max, a Junior political science major at the University of Notre Dame, and I spent the Fall of 2025 working at the United Nations Association of the United States of America’s (UNA-USA) National Office in Washington DC. I landed an internship at UNA-USA due to a recommendation from a friend of mine who had already found a position elsewhere, but was offered the UNA-USA internship. When I started working at UNA-USA, I had little idea of what we actually did here, and what my job would even entail. I do not have a concentration in international affairs, and though I support the United Nations, I was not very well informed about it. Looking back, though, I am so glad that I ended up here at UNA-USA. I love nonprofit work, and helping to manage this organization has really taught me a lot. The National Office is such a small team, and they run such a sweeping and important organization, it really made me feel like I was doing vital work. 

I was the Community Outreach and Engagement Intern working under Madison Peak, so my main responsibilities involved assisting Madison with managing UNA-USA’s community chapters. Much of my time was spent updating our outdated systems, including fixing dropdown menus on the join forms and making sure that the chapter list on the UNA-USA website was up to date. I was additionally tasked, along with all of the other interns, with helping to organize logistics for the National Leadership Summit in St. Louis in November. While I was unable to attend the Summit in person, I was responsible for setting up the app that we used to run the whole Summit, which meant that I was intimately familiar with the schedule and the events that occurred in St. Louis. I also assisted other full time team members with their tasks, including the membership email account and the in memoriam for former UNA President William Luers.

I greatly value the chance I got to work with both the full time team members and the other fall interns here. Though our tasks were largely separate, we all organized the UNA postcard competition together, which allowed for the chance to work with some of my peers. A special shoutout to Sarah, who I found out very early in the internship, did the exact same summer teaching program (Breakthrough) as I did, except in a different city. Working at UNA-USA has been an excellent experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life, and I am sure that when I return to DC someday, I will reconnect with everyone I’ve met here. Thank you so much to everyone at UNA-USA for welcoming me into your organization, and especially thank you to Farah Eck for taking a chance on my application and Madison for being such a great supervisor! I will miss you all!