Which is better for accessing internships in Washington, DC: UC Santa Barbara or American University?

American University provides much stronger day-to-day access to Washington, DC internships. Its campus is in DC, so students can intern during the academic year with federal agencies, congressional offices, advocacy groups, think tanks, media organizations, and international institutions while taking regular classes. AU’s School of Public Affairs is particularly oriented toward policy, government, and public-service careers, and its location makes networking events, guest speakers, and short-term opportunities far easier to pursue.

UC Santa Barbara can still lead to excellent DC experience, but meaningful access is more likely to come through a dedicated term or summer relocation rather than regular academic-year involvement.

For a student whose central goal is to intern repeatedly in DC and build a local political or policy network throughout college, American is the more practical choice. UCSB makes sense for someone who prefers its California campus experience and is comfortable concentrating DC internship work into a semester or a summer.