After internships, some students can expect a wealth of experience or perhaps a letter of recommendation. North Carolina A&T junior Amaze Lusompa expected to meet President Barack Obama – and he did.

Lusompa, 21, spent the majority of the spring semester as a research intern with the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors.

The Council of Economic Advisors is mandated by congress to produce the economic report which advises the president on domestic and international economic policies. As an intern, Lusompa conducted statistical analyses and prepared reports for senior members of the council and the president.

As an added bonus to the internship, Lusompa and his fellow interns got to meet the president on April 3.

“The interns usually get to meet him in February but this year it was delayed,” Lusompa said.

“I was actually scared that I wasn’t going to meet him because my last day was the next week.”

Lusompa got to do more than just meet the president, he actually shook his hand.

“We walked in to the west wing and outside the Oval Office, we lined up and he shook our hands and told us to keep up the good work,” he said.

“He shook my hand for a long time and because my name is not conventional, he stared at my name tag.”

Though his meeting with the president lasted only a few moments, Lusompa said he was inspired.

“I thought it was kind of weird because before he got there, I could feel the vibe that he actually cares about people – you can tell he actually does care about people,” Lusompa said.

He applied for the high-profile internship in October, interviewed and was offered the position in November. This experience has reaffirmed his dreams to earn his Ph.D. and be an economist work between academia and a government economic entity such as the Federal Reserve or the Department of Treasury.

Lusompa says the internship taught him a very valuable lesson on being humble and taking constructive criticism.

“That is the easiest way to improve,” he said. “It wasn’t something I liked before but I know now it is the easiest way to get better.”

At A&T, Lusompa is a Dowdy Scholar and has been a member of the university’s Honors Program, the Golden Key International Honor Society, Beta Gamma Sigma Business Honor Society, Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society, Omicron Delta Epsilon Honor Society for Economics, Alpha Chi Honor Society and he has made the dean’s list every semester since Fall 2009 and the Georgetown University dean’s list during capital semester participating in an academic, internship program focused on politics, public policy and economics.