Abby Crawley
In Abby Crawley’s case, shooting for the moon and landing amongst the stars wasn’t an option.
IT ALL STARTED WITH an eighth-grade field trip to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where a young Crawley from Browns Mills suddenly thought to herself, “This is larger than life.”
Following the trip, her mother, who Crawley credits for her passion for storytelling from the tall tales she spun about the vast unknown, remarked that the people they all met at the museum “knew so much, maybe more than they’ll ever know,” to which Crawley responded, “Well, I want to know what they know, too.”
Several years later and prior to her first year as a Communication Studies major at Stockton University, Crawley applied for an internship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA. Receiving a rejection letter stung her – working with NASA’s marketing and communications team was her dream, and her only hangup was the fact that she had no experience in high-level or government communications.
Enter The Washington Center, a program that acts as a pipeline for students looking to gain professional experience through internships and academic seminars hosted in Washington, D.C.
While it wasn’t obvious to her at the time, her decision to return to D.C. during her junior year, the place that first sparked her dream of exploring the stars, soon became the catalyst that changed the trajectory of her life.
C RAWLEY IMMEDIATELY FELT AT HOME within D.C.’s fast-paced environment and was faced with a comforting realization: she wasn’t alone in her struggle. According to her, multiple students in the program shared that they, too, were struggling to secure the positions they needed for career advancement.
“It's a very out-of-body experience to realize that you're in a situation where everybody around you is the best of the best,” Crawley said. “It's a mixed feeling of, ‘I have to step it up,’ and also, ‘How can I learn from them?’ It showed me that rejection doesn’t define your worth, it just means the competition is tough, and the tougher it is, the more you’re moving up in the world.”
Moving up indeed. Through the program, she was placed in a semester-long internship with Families USA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to health advocacy. It turned out to be exactly what she needed to continue advancing in her career journey.
I want people to care about space... I want people to care about all the absolutely crazy milestones we've reached and, regardless of anything going on, I want people to care that we have done so much and that we continue to push the limits.”
“I worked as a communications intern, helping the department with press releases, graphic design, media reviews and crisis communications. I got to live out the version of my dream I had always imagined,” Crawley said.
“Before that internship, I had minimal experience with crisis communication or working alongside government relations,” Crawley continued. “But during my time there, I got to work closely with policy advocates and contribute to meaningful projects that genuinely impacted public well-being. That meant everything to me.”
The impact of the program wasn’t just academic and professional – it also taught her a valuable life lesson.
“What made it so impactful was how it dropped me directly into the reality I had always dreamed of,” Crawley said. “I was in the city I have always wanted to live in, doing meaningful work that aligned with my major and affected millions of people. The program hands you the tools, the opportunities and the environment and asks, ‘Now what?’ That’s when it clicked for me. You can have everything you want, but it’s still up to you to keep climbing or stay still.”
AFTER AN ACTION-PACKED SPRING with Families USA, Crawley took the plunge and applied to NASA again. She admittedly was surprised to receive an offer from NASA Stennis in Mississippi.
“I knew it would be the most demanding internship I’d had yet. It would require me to apply everything I’d learned over the past six years, from high school through college, right up to my work at Families USA. But I finally felt ready,” Crawley said. “Now at NASA Stennis, I have yet again been given everything I have ever wanted. My dream career since I was 10 years old, and the experience to back it up.”
So, what does Crawley’s dream career look like? According to her, it’s a role that allows her to exercise her creativity through compelling campaigns that seek to tell the stories of the people making NASA’s mission possible.
“I create and manage social media campaigns, direct and produce videos and coordinate efforts with the NASA Stennis History Office,” Crawley shared. “A big focus of my internship is revitalizing the historical division by building engaging content and creating opportunities for others to learn through the content I create.
“One of the projects I created, the Share Your Stennis Story campaign, gives me the opportunity to collaborate with employees across the entire center. In my time here so far, it has been a unique experience seeing how each team plays a role in NASA’s mission.”
Crawley hopes that through her passion for marketing and storytelling, she’ll be able to share her love for space with all.
“I want people to care about space and not just like stars and whatever: I want people to care about the fact that we have put a man on the moon, and that we were the very first to do so,” Crawley expressed. “I want people to care about all the absolutely crazy milestones we've reached and, regardless of anything going on, I want people to care that we have done so much and that we continue to push the limits.”
Story by Loukaia Taylor
