And What Did You Do This Summer? An Interview with Victoria Johnson, ‘18
interesting one to be looking at issues
surrounding taxation, as lots of speculation
surrounded what the new administration
would propose and what consequences that
would have for the country.
What have you done at Rice that
prepared you for this position?
Victoria Johnson is a senior MTEC major at
Duncan College from Torrance, California. In
addition to her internship this past summer at the
Brookings Institution, she has also held positions
in financial institutions, insurance companies
and local government.
What kind of internship did you have
this past summer?
I was a research intern at the Brookings
Institution in Washington, D.C., in the
Economic Studies Department and
specifically in the Tax Policy Center,
which is run jointly by Brookings and the
Urban Institute. For most of my time there
I worked on various issues in the realm of
tax policy, since my supervisor was Dr.
Bill Gale, the co-director of the Tax Policy
Center. I didn’t have one specific project
but focused on a couple of different areas,
including the partial repeal of income tax
cuts in Kansas, the taxation of imputed
rental income from owner-occupied
housing worldwide, and the status of
household finances for millennials. What I
did day-to-day ranged from helping to draft
op-eds and blog posts to working with data
sets to performing initial literature reviews.
Since Public Finance very closely related
to a lot of topics I covered this summer,
it was definitely the most directly useful
class for me. I’ve taken several classes that
utilize computer programming through
STATA and R, and these were helpful
skills in looking to analyze large data
sets. Microeconomics with Dr. Brown
also greatly influenced my interest in and
approach to economics generally. Besides
just classes, I’ve been lucky to meet a lot
of people here who are passionate about
public policy, and conversations about
federal and local issues greatly contributed
to my interest in working in these areas.
How did your internship affect your
future plans?
Being exposed to policy research at such
a high level definitely made me want to
work in a similar position after graduation,
especially since I hadn’t had a similar full-
time research position before. I also hadn’t
previously considered working in D.C.
long-term, but now I can see myself living
there to work on federal policy. Because
of my experience this summer, my goal
currently is to work as a research assistant
for a few years and then potentially go to
graduate school. Ultimately, I’d like to end
up working to effect change through public
policy, either within the government or at a
non-profit organization.
What was your favorite part about
working at Brookings, as well as living in
D.C.?
I really enjoyed what I was working on,
and being at Brookings was amazing
because they host a variety of eve