The Duke in DC program offers a unique and exciting opportunity to live, study, and work in the nation’s capital.
This is an opportunity to experience up close how public policy shapes society. Whether your future is as a lawyer, a social entrepreneur, a teacher, a high-tech innovator, an artist, or simply an engaged citizen, public policy matters to you. This program helps you understand how.
The program is offered in the spring semester and it has a pre-professional tilt, connecting classroom study to experiential learning oriented around policy innovation and public leadership. Participants meet in weekly seminars with Duke faculty members. Assignments are tailored to the student's policy interests.
Courses feature high-profile practitioners from the media, government, and advocacy communities – often Duke alums – who are eager to share how Washington really works and to guide students' intellectual and professional development. Participants also gain a significant work credential through a 28-hour/week internship.
The Duke in DC experience was like no other. Striking an exciting yet rigorous balance between academics, policy experience, and thoughtful exploration, the program brought me out of my shell and molded me into a leader - helping me to find and grow a voice that was buried deep within. - Jabril Wilson, PPS, African & African American Studies '21
About the Faculty
Kristin Goss
Kevin D. Gorter Professor of Public Policy and Political Science, Director of Duke in DC
Professor Goss focuses on why people do (or don't) participate in political life and how their engagement affects public policymaking. Her current research projects focus on the role of philanthropic billionaires in policy debates and on the evolution of gun-related advocacy over the past decade. Professor Goss is the author of The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women's Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (University of Michigan Press, 2013). The book documents and explains the surprising rise -- and even more surprising fall -- of American women's groups on the national stage. She is also the author of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Philip J. Cook) and Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America.
Duke in DC students with David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States.
Featured Video
Duke's Influential DC Network
Duke Sanford School of Public Policy students have access to an influential network in Washington, DC. -- 13,000 Duke alums call the region home.