A Summer in Public Safety
Published on April 22, 2021Carolina student treated like a full-time employee during his summer internship.
Carolina student treated like a full-time employee during his summer internship.
Through his APPLES policy and strategic planning summer internship in the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS), Purshotam Aruwani ’20 was treated more as a full-time employee than an intern.
“We really threw him into a lot of the day-to-day stuff that any of us would be doing,” said Mike Daniska, director of the DPS office of policy and strategic planning. “Reviewing and providing feedback on policies, strategic planning, reaching out to stakeholders, building emergency evacuation planning stuff — he did a great job.”
This internship, made possible by a partnership with the UNC Institute of Politics, gave Aruwani the opportunity to spend much of the summer gathering and reviewing public safety policy comparisons from other states.
“State government is something I’ve always been interested in, always wanted to become more involved in,” said Aruwani. “That level of experience, having room to grow in my professional understanding, getting to work with officials — it was all a new experience for me. [Those] few months have really set me up to work in this field later on.”
