Jamison Nicklaus, of Simpsonville, a junior political science major at Lander University, is scheduled to spend the fall semester of his senior year working and studying in the nation's capital, as an intern in the Washington Semester program sponsored by the University of South Carolina Honors College.
Nicklaus, who is enrolled in Lander's Honors College, looks forward to the internship as an opportunity to study elsewhere and meet new people. He has not received an assignment yet, but said he hopes to be placed in the U.S. Trade Representative's office or the Department of Commerce. His minor at Lander is economics and he has a strong interest in international economics.
After Lander, Nicklaus plans to obtain a master's degree in public affairs, with an emphasis on economic development. His goal is to return to South Carolina and work in the state's commerce department. He has written a research paper on the state's trade and investment policies and its success in attracting foreign investors.
At Lander, Nicklaus, 21, is a peer tutor; president of the Political Science Association; vice chair of the university's South Carolina student legislature; and he is awaiting induction into Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science honor society.
His younger brother, Tyler, is a freshman in Lander's physical education and exercise science program.
When he was 15, Jamison Nicklaus came face-to-face with a life-threatening crisis. While waiting to begin his sophomore year in high school, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and, for the next eight months, he would undergo chemotherapy. He said, "The experience helped me mature faster and focus on what's important in life." The disease is in remission and he added, "I've put it all behind me."
Nicklaus is the 11th Lander student selected for the Washington Semester program since 2009. In fact, each Lander student who applied during that time was accepted.
The ninth and 10th interns are sophomores April Chaffins, of Gaston, an English major, and history major Mary-Katherine Tipp, of Charlotte, N.C., who are both in Washington for the spring semester.
Chaffins is working for the Children's Defense Fund, the advocacy organization whose founder and president is South Carolina native Marian Wright Edelman. Tipp is working in the Capitol Hill office of Senator Tim Scott, (R-SC).
Washington interns are paid and, when they are not working or spending leisure time sightseeing, they are required to attend classes for which they earn course credits.