Betsy McGavisk: Coming off of my UVM internship this was the most obvious next step for me.

Speaker 2: This is the official CDAE Alumni Podcast where current students interview former students and learn about how their experience as interns and undergrads led them to where they are now. Today we're with Betsy McGavisk. Betsy was a community international development major who graduated in 2019 she now works as a community organizer for rights and democracy in Addison County, Vermont. Hey Betsy.

Betsy McGavisk: Hi there.

Speaker 2: How are you today?

Betsy McGavisk: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. How are you?

Speaker 2: I'm good, thank you. And how's life?

Betsy McGavisk: Oh, life is good. Life is very busy. But I'm doing all right. Staying in Burlington. I'm excited about the snow. Excited about winter here, so things are good.

Speaker 2: Okay, and you had an internship, was it through UVM or through the internship program?

Betsy McGavisk: Yeah, so it was something that I found on my own. It was something that I would probably already be spending my time doing, but I was excited to get credit for it because then I could be getting credit for something I was really passionate about and not be super stressed out and have time to do it. So it was something I found on my own. But then I got credit through the CDA Internship Program.

Speaker 2: And how did you go about finding the internship?

Betsy McGavisk: Yeah, so my job, my internship, I was a campaign manager for a city council race here in Burlington. I found that, I guess through word of mouth it was, you know, before that I was an intern for the Lieutenant Governor of Vermont and I had met some other people in that office and was already involved in local politics, like progressive organizing. And then yeah, last spring rolled around and this person was kind of stepping up to run for city council and they were looking for staff members and I was there and like ready to go and then had a relationship with those people. So I just kind of took it from there.

Speaker 2: Oh, that sounds good. And how did the transition happen from internship to career?

Betsy McGavisk: My job now, I am a community organizer with Rights and Democracy. And so basically what Rights and Democracy does is we do issue based organizing and also electoral organizing. So, and when I say organizing, it's mostly just talking to people and like bringing people together to talk about like similar issues that we're experiencing. So issues like raising the minimum wage, paid family medical leave insurance, which is like with paid maternity leave. And so bringing people together to like talk about how these issues are impacting them and in discussing ways that we can influence legislators.

Betsy McGavisk: And so we work on these kinds of issues and then we find champions of these issues and try to get them elected into office. And so that's what I do now in the transition into this job from a being like a local campaign manager was, I mean the job posting happened around April before I graduated and so it would, the timing worked out really well.

Betsy McGavisk: So I got off the campaign, it was great. Our candidate won and unseated an incumbent Democrat. Yeah. I had kind of been really involved in this community of people who are progressive and politically minded and I was able to talk to other people who had had this job before, who knew the people that worked at this organization and I was able to get a sense of like what the work would be like, realized I had kind of already gotten these skills over the last few months. And so that was kind of the transition. I took off the summer to do a different internship and not necessarily like starting on my career, but that was good because I needed some time off and so I got the job around May. I took the summer to do something else and then I started in August. But yeah, I think if people are excited about doing this kind of thing, excited about talking to their community and being really rooted in issues of justice and in the political scene, I would totally recommend this over simply doing campaign work or just like doing electoral politics because that can be really competitive and really draining. And this feels a lot more energizing because you're working with community members and you're working on issues and it's not just I want my candidate to win, but like how do we solve these issues together?

Speaker 2: So we're going to get you out of here, but we want to ask you a little fun question. Tell me a funny or interesting story about your internship.

Betsy McGavisk: I'm trying to think of at the moment that was like really... I mean the campaign team was really fun and the other people that I was working with to get Jack elected, it was really, really fun. The day before the election we like made this like big hype that we were like going to come out with some really big huge news about Jack's campaign. And then it was like him and his roommate like remixed a song and sang it together. And so that was really fun of like, we are clearly all like young people doing this and it is really silly and we can have fun and also be like, you know, feeling like we're doing good work in our communities. So that was one that's like moment of like hyping it up. Like we have some, some big news and it was just, we sing a song.

Speaker 2: So if you could do it all over again, would you? And if not, what would you change?

Betsy McGavisk: Yeah, so I think I would totally stick with this. I mean I've been in this current job for about three months, so I think I'm still getting a sense of it and still getting a feel for things and I'm super happy. Like I think I was coming off of my UVM internship, this was the most obvious next step for me. And so I think if I did anything else, I would feel like I was missing out on what made sense for me. So moving forward, maybe I'll, you know, change career path or do something else. But for now this feels like the right move.

Speaker 2: That's amazing. Well, we're rooting for you. We're so happy you're happy and you're doing good in your career and we hope to hear from you soon.

Betsy McGavisk: Thanks team.