Something great about being in DC compared to the Midwest is how close it is to other major cities. As exciting as Dubuque can be, the other trips I have taken have been a bit more exciting. I have gone on two weekend trips since being in DC: Boston and New York City.

My Boston trip was a few weekends ago, from March 8th to the 9th. The main purpose of this trip was to see UMass Dartmouth Law School. So for this trip, I flew using JetBlue, which was surprising decent for how cheap the flight was. This city is a little far out from DC compared to other major cities, so that is why I had to fly if I wanted to be able to tour the school. While the touring of the school was very interesting and helpful in making my final decision on what law school I want to go on to, the most fun was obviously Boston and the adventures I had there.

While in Boston, I was able to do a lot of tourist activities, such as walk the Freedom Trail. This trail is about 2.5 miles long, however I only did about 2 miles of the hike since I had limited time in Boston and had already seen some of the sights this past summer when I went on a trip with my mom. However, I was able to see up close the Massachusetts State House (old and new) and also tour buildings such as Paul Revere’s house and the old Massachusetts State House. I was also able to walk around the Old Granary Cemetery and see the graves of some famous people such as Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Mother Goose (who they believe might be her). I also walked around Quincy Market, which is so amazing.

I also toured the JFK Museum on the outskirts of Boston. This was an amazing museum, probably one of the best I have ever been to. This museum was beautifully built and was so informational. There were so many artifacts and so much information about JFK’s life and his presidency. It was paid for and supervised by his family, including Jackie Kennedy, so it didn’t include some of the more scandalous theories around him, such as Marilyn Monroe. However, there were clips in the museum that included the real audio of the president and other government officials discussing situations such as the Cuban Missile Crisis as it was going on, since JFK had installed recording devices in his office and conference room about 3 weeks before the CMC happened. I highly suggest this museum.

My second trip was to NYC this past weekend. This was just for the sole purpose of going to explore the city and see some Broadway Shows. This was also an amazing trip. I did the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which is an absolutely incredible museum as well. I also did the tour called “Catacombs by Candlelight” which takes a group on a tour of one of the few catacomb chambers in the US, which is currently under the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Manhattan. This tour was really informative and fun, because it is amazing to see such an amazing piece of history and our tour guide did a great job of explaining the back story of this area and who are some of the people buried in this catacomb.

But for me, the highlight was definitely the two Broadway Shows I saw. I came to NYC by bus on Friday and saw the show Hilary and Clinton that night, which focuses around Hilary Clinton running for presidency in the 2008 election and around the primaries where she is trying to beat Barack Obama for New Hampshire. This show was very funny but also pulled on your heart strings because the show portrayed Hilary as a woman trying so hard to get this dream and the patriarchy and her husband’s actions/ mistakes seeming to always somehow inhibit her from being the woman she wants to be. The second show I saw was the complete opposite from my Friday show. On Saturday night, I went to see Pretty Woman: The Musical. This show was absolutely spectacular with the music and the dancing and how well it paired up with the movie. Both of these shows were incredible.

Some takeaways I got from these trips: so for both of them, I traveled alone, which is something I have never done. But it is possible to be a woman in large cities and travel alone. Just make sure you have plans ahead of time on what you are doing and where you are going. This will help you not only time wise, but also safety wise. You also have to be vigilant as a woman traveling, but I noticed that when I acted as if I knew exactly where I was/ where I was going, I had no problems with people trying to approach me. Having confidence in yourself helped with not being bothered. Second, do your research. I stayed in a hotel in Boston and an AirBnB for NYC. Both were great but were not the best location wise, as far as distance from the city. So make sure you know where you are staying if you want to stay close to the city and be prepared to pay more to do so. But if you are going to DC for an internship or living there, take advantage of the location! While DC is amazing, there are so many other great cities around too.

So something that I was able to participate in while I’m in DC was the Tomodachi project. For those of you who don’t know, Tomodachi is the Japanese word for friendship. The Tomodachi initiative is a partnership, started by the aftermath and support for Japan during Japan’s recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake, that invests in the next generation of Japanese and American leaders through educational and cultural exchanges as well as leadership programs. There are many different branches of this organization and I participated in the “Building the TOMODACHI Generation: Morgan Stanley Ambassadors Program”. This is a two week program and, for me, it was 12 Japanese students and 7 American students that come together in America to build a friendship and work out cross-cultural communication skills to address social challenges.

This program started with the American students coming together on Wednesday nights after our internships for three hours to meet and listen to panels and background information on Japanese culture, specifically their civil society. This part of the program lasted three weeks and we were able to learn a lot about Japanese Civil Society, something I knew next to nothing about before this program.

Finally, after three weeks of this type of learning, the Japanese Students came! They arrived on February 16th and we, the 7 American students, met them on the 17th. We went as a group to show them sights of DC including the monuments and the Smithsonian Museums. After that, starting Sunday, we started to work on our project. The project was two hard weeks of work that took up most of my free time. While on the weekend, there were fun activities for bonding with the Japanese students, such as a ropes course on the following Saturday (which I had to miss since I came down with a stomach bug, of course), the majority of time was working in small groups to complete this project.

The project was creating an idea or non-profit that would be based in Japan that would help something that was suffering in Japan because of the 3/11 tsunami disaster. I could tell a lot of details about this process but, all in all, it was very hard work. We spent countless hours researching, editing, and coming up with an idea of what Japan needs. Our group came up with the need of rice farming. After the 3/11 disaster, agriculture was in serious need of revival. However, the government looked at a lot of the crops near the coast to revive, and didn’t pay much attention to the inland crops, which is why those suffered. Also, Japan has an aging population, especially when it comes to farming (6 in 10 farmers in Japan are over the age of 65). So our project was focused around the idea of creating a model farm, where tech companies could come to our rice farm to show off their tech products to help increase production, while decreasing time spent doing manual labor. This would essentially make rice farming a tech job, which would entice a younger population to go into farming.

This idea took a lot of research and tweaking and fixing. Like I said before, most of my free time after my internship hours was spent working with my small group (which consisted of another American student and 4 Japanese students) to perfect our presentation. We not only had to research this idea, but we also had to research possible partners, create a budget, and create a 15 minute presentation. But at the end of the day, the time spent was definitely worth it. Our group was awarded 1st place and got special recognition for our project.

But more importantly, I was able to learn a lot from participating in this program. While there are some cons, such as the time this all takes and how frustrating it can be at times with the cultural differences, it overall was an amazing experience. I really strengthened my cross-cultural communication skills. I learned a lot about Japanese culture and civil society. We also were a strong group because we not only worked well as a group, we were able to take some time to show videos, watch the Oscars, get dinner together, etc. We laughed together a lot! We became friends, not just colleagues. Another bonus was that we got a lot of free food from doing this project and went to some amazing places for free, since everything was paid for by the Morgan Stanley corporation. If you hear about Tomodachi, and have the opportunity to participate, I highly highly suggest you do!

In this blog post, I am going to be talking about some of the activities or events I have gone to while in DC. There are so many events going on each day in DC. Here are just some that I have been to.

1. The National Mall: Obviously a classic place to go in DC. For those of you who don’t know, the National Mall is a long park surrounded by the Smithsonian Museums, Monuments, and the Capitol Building. I have been to the National Mall a few times now, going to the Monuments with the Tomodachi group (which will be explained in the next blog post) and going to the museums by myself. The National Mall is always a good place to go since there are always events going on and the Smithsonian museums are free. So far I have been to the Natural History museum, the African American Art Museum, and the National History museum.

2. Another event I went to was a comedy brunch place. At this place, there were around 6 comedians that did 20-30 minute acts at a small brunch place called the Wonderland Ballroom. This was free to go to but just cost if you wanted to buy food or drink. This was a really good event since it was low cost and the comedians were actually very good. If you enjoy small name comedians or comedians who are just starting out, DC is a great place. There are usually comedians performing at different brunch restaurants or bars almost every weekend for $0 to $20 for a ticket, if they are a slightly bigger name.

3. A third event I went to was a Drag Brunch Show. This was by far one of the most fun events I have gone to in DC. I have been to one drag show before in my life and while those drag queens were good, this group of ladies were absolutely amazing. This event was at City Tap Dupont Circle. They lip-synced to songs with a variety from Beyonce to Mamma Mia to country songs to the Brady Bunch theme song. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be going back.

4. Nightlife. So I actually have not gone out much to bars on the weekends because of the huge cost they are. There are no “cheap” bars in DC that are still a safe place to be. However, the one night we went out was a great time. We went to a bar with a dance floor and they had these giant drink specials that my friends and I split. If you are going to go out in DC, that is definitely what I suggest. 1) Go only 1 to 2 places a night because popular bars fill up fast and you will either be super crowded or standing in line outside the bar. 2) Find a place without a cover charge (saving money this way). 3) Find a bar with a drink specialty that you can split with your friends to save money. It will be a lot cheaper than buying individual drinks.

5. So this one was another one of my favorite events I have gone to in DC. Musicals and Plays are a huge attraction in DC and DC is known for having some of the best performers on the east coast (outside of Broadway, of course). Two weekends ago, I was able to attend the play “Richard the III” put on by the Shakespeare Theater Company. This show was one of the best plays I have ever seen! It was so intricate because it kept the original Shakespeare script but modernized it by showing ways of death that are used today in torture/ war, such as water boarding. Everything but the wording was very modern and made this play very interesting to watch and listen too. It was absolutely amazing. Also, a good idea is to keep a lot out for good deals. I was able to score a ticket during an online sale and got a second row ticket that was normally $118 for only $49 instead! By keeping a look out for those deals, you are able to get amazing seats for super cheap.

Of course I have been to the average activities in any city, such as going shopping, going to the movies. But since those aren’t too exciting, I’ll spare you the details. However, I did label this blog post part 1 because I am sure I will have another blog post about freetime activities again. Thanks for reading!

This week’s blog post is going to specifically be about having the night classes and adjusting to a work week in DC. Instead of having the same thing every week where I discuss what I all did during the week, I’m going to scatter in some posts about specific items, such as programs I am participating in or, such as today’s post, my night class.

So part of the Washington Center program is you are required to take a once-a-week night class. They send you a list of 10 – 15 courses to choose from and you rank your top 5. For me, I ranked and was placed in my first choice: Conflict, Security, and Peace in International Relations. My class is on Tuesday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 PM.

So, first, about the class itself. Our professor seems to be a pretty nice guy. He works at a think tank here in DC and has lived and worked abroad for his degrees in places such as Turkey and India. We have had 3 classes so far and in those classes, we have worked on the basic theories of IR, such as realism and liberalism, but also gone into specific examples, mainly about the Middle East. We also have worked on ideas such as security complex and the Speech Act.

So now that I have explained the basics, I will go more into what I think about this class. There are some cons about this class but for the most part, I do enjoy the content. He is not my favorite professor I have had, but he is extremely knowledgeable about areas of the world that I, quite honestly, do not know a lot about such as the inner workings of the Middle East, Turkey, and India. These are places and topics that I did not have a large amount of exposure to and being taught by someone who has been to that part of the world and knows a lot about them is really awesome. While the theories part can be a little boring and/ or not always taught in the easiest way to understand, the real world application is a really cool component.

However, part of the night class that I was not expecting was the exhaustion I feel during it. After working all day for 9 hours, sitting through a 3 hour night class is not that much fun. I have taken night classes before , but it feels completely different to me. I had no idea how different it was between working all day and then going to a night class versus going to classes during the day and then having a night class. Because I work in an office and I don’t move around a lot, I knew I wouldn’t get physically exhausted but I didn’t think about how mentally exhausted I would get. It makes me really admire the people who do this on the daily in order to get their degree because this is hard. It is hard to work a 9 to 5 job and then go to class and try to make sure you are paying attention and absorbing the information given to you. While the class can be interesting, you can still not want to be there just because you are mentally exhausted, and that is something I have had to learn to adjust to.

That is all I am going to talk about this week. However, next time I post, (hopefully early this coming week) I believe I am going to talk about some of the activities I have been able to experience in DC, such as drag brunches or plays/ shows I went to!

So for most interns, the first day of work was on Monday. I was no exception. I started my internship at League of Women Voters on Monday at 10 am. Everyday I have worked at my site from 9 am to 5 pm, with a few exceptions (I will explain those later). For those of you who don’t know what this organization is, LWV is an American civic organization that was originally formed to help women take a larger role in public affairs after winning the right to vote. However, while it still has this mission, it now is also an organization that has male involvement, is officially nonpartisan, and educates voters on elections. These elections range from school board elections all the way to Presidential elections. These last few days have been very interesting. I work at a desk most of the day and have been working on a few different projects. These projects included calling up different branches of the organization (there are branches throughout the whole US) and making sure their information is up to date. Another project was looking up the websites and social medias for different people who announced they were running for different offices and determining if they are still actually running. Finally, I also have been looking into different cities to see if they have any elections this year. While 2019 is traditionally not an election year, a lot of cities have primaries or special elections for vacant seats and we cover all of those.

This work has been interesting. While I’m not always a huge fan to sit at a desk, I know this is only temporary since most local 2019 elections are done by March. Also, I am learning a lot and it has only been my first week. I am learning about local elections and the impact social media has on your platform and how you are represented in your race. These are things I knew about before on a basic level but now really see up close and personal.

Like I mentioned above, my work week has been a little different from what it normally will be. Part of the reason for that has been the weather. Since I have always lived in Wisconsin, the cold and the snow are a norm for me. I don’t think much about getting 2 or 3 inches of snow or having temps that are around 10 degrees or less. However, this is really different in DC. On Tuesday, I was told to leave work early because of the ‘inclement weather’. I could see from my office window that it was snowing but was not able to see how many inches DC actually got. When I got outside, I was shocked to see that no snow had actually gathered on the ground. By the time the snow hit the ground, it had all melted. However, the way people were talking about it who are from DC/ the surrounding area, you would have thought we just got a foot of snow. Also, I didn’t have to come into work until 12 pm the next day because of “the weather”. This difference between DC and Wisconsin was something I was not at all expecting. I knew Wisconsin had harsher winters but did not expect the difference to be this drastic. Also, it has been in the low teens to right above 0. Again, I know this is cold but this is downright freezing to people from the east cost. That is something new I am learning about this area.

Today, we had our day off from our internships. On Fridays, we have our LEAD classes (mentioned in the previous blog) and then I also went to the optional class about knowing your rights when being involved in a protest. One of the events I am most looking forward to while being in DC is going to protests about issues I am passionate about. In DC, there are an average of 1-3 protests a day. This informational session that TWC put on for us was giving us tips on what to expect if we had never been to a protest before and going over what most of them look like. Unlike the media can portray, our instructor (who has been to over 150 protests in the last 2 1/2 years) said they are generally full of energy but nonviolent. I can not wait to go to and experience my first real protest while being in DC and I will make sure to talk about it on this blog.

While I will eventually go into details about my night class I am taking as part of the TWC program and other programs I have become involved in through TWC (such as being one of 9 American students chosen to work with a group of Japanese students who are coming here), I will save those for another blog post since I want to have more than one week of experience with those before I talk about them. So, this is it for this week’s blog post about my DC experience. If you want me to talk about something particular or special, just let me know!

This first weekend in DC was both amazing and crazy. It started with my flight being canceled for Wednesday because of the snowstorm that was coming to Milwaukee (where I was flying out of). So instead of having a direct flight from MKE to DC that left at 8 am, I instead took a later flight that left at 10:15 am and had a 2 1/2 hour layover in Kansas City. My dad is great man though, because he braved the terrible weather to drive me to Milwaukee, a drive that normally takes just under 3 hours from our house but instead took just over 4 hours because of the road conditions. But I did finally make it to DC. That is where I met my roommates. While I am in DC, I am living in an apartment building solely dedicated to the students who are going through The Washington Center (TWC) Program. My apartment is a corner apartment, which is nice because it means it is a bit bigger than some of the other apartments. I am living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with 3 other girls. My actual roommate is a 24 year old student from Belgium named Griet (the G sounds like an H-ish). She is majoring in what is somewhat equivalent to communications. My other two suite mates are Kathy, from Connecticut, and Rhee from Texas. So far things are going well on that end and we are getting along great. The apartment has a full sized kitchen, a dining room area, a living room, 2 storage closets, and a washer and dryer in the apartment. The building we live in is called the RAF, standing for the Residential and Academic Facility.

Moving on from my living spaces, part of the reason things have been so crazy is how much stuff we have been doing. Starting bright and early Thursday morning, we had to be dressed in business professional clothing and we went to a variety of ‘classes’ on a variety of topics. I chose classes about how to best get around DC and some travel tips. I also chose the class on how to best impress as an intern during your first week of work. This included the Do’s and Don’ts of being an intern, such as asking permission before accessing information or making sure you are always asking for more work and not just doing the bare minimum.

These classes continued throughout the night. And the next morning, it was back at it again with more classes and dressing in our business casual. However, this morning, we were introduced to our LEAD classes. This is when we are split up to about 15-20 students and one mentor to help teach us about being an intern, how to network, how to find a mentor, and so on. These are the classes that we will take every Friday for 1 1/2 hours. At night, we had our Networking to Nightlife event where past alumni from TWC program came who still lived and worked in DC told us about their experiences with the program and what jobs they have now. I was able to connect with a woman named Natalie who works for the Suicide Prevention Lifeline in DC and does lobbying for that organization. We are scheduling coffee for later in February so I can get to know more about how she got to her position in her organization and more about what living in DC is like. Networking is one of the biggest parts of DC. It is a buzzword constantly said by mentors and alum of TWC. Informational Interviews, interviews where one person who is younger/ less experienced will sit down with a person and ask them questions like how they got to their career or what their career is really like, are huge here. This is something very common in DC and something we, as students participating in the program, are required to do.

Saturday is where less of the information came into play and more of the culture and ‘fun-side’ of DC came in. I was able to take a trip with other students of TWC to Old Towne Alexandria where we were able to explore the town and get to know more about the history of this cute place outside of DC. Honestly, while this program does cost a good amount, they also supply you with so many opportunities that they then cover the cost. So not only does your program cost go towards the professors who teach the night classes and the apartment building we live in, but they also have so many different programs they call ‘extended learning opportunities’. So I am trying to go on as many as I can to get the best experience that I can get in DC. On the rest of Saturday, my suitemate, Kathy and I went on the Metro for the first time trying to figure out the quickest way to our intern sites. One thing I learned from this experience is that you are going to get lost and that is okay. Google maps isn’t always the most reliable with walking paths so you will wander around for awhile and that is totally normal. Luckily we finally found our way to the train station and then eventually found our way to our intern sites after, again, getting lost for awhile. However, it is sometimes really cool to get lost in DC. Because while we were chasing the wrong address of my intern site, we found some of the embassys of places like Chile and Peru, which is something I have never seen. So, sometimes, getting lost is better than knowing exactly where you are going.

Another thing I discovered is that you need to try new things. My professor, Dr. Sappleton, recommended this Ethiopian restaurant to me before I left.
I convinced Griet and Kathy to come with me for this new experience. If I hadn’t gotten a recommendation to go to this type of restaurant, I probably would never have voluntarily gone for this type of food. However, this was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had with eating at a restaurant. There is no silverware, but instead they give you bowls of your main dish and these huge crepe-looking bread items that you use to pick up your main dish. So you tear these ‘rolls’ and use it to pinch your food and this is how you eat this type of food. While I didn’t discover my new favorite type of food, this still was one of the coolest experiences I have had a restaurant. So if you end up studying or living in a new place, don’t always go for the same type of food that is most comfortable to you. There are always so many things to try that might end up being a great experience.

On Sunday, there was an opportunity for some of the TWC mentors who live in the building with us to take us on a walking tour of NoMa, the neighborhood we live in. I went on this tour and was able to see some of the different shops and restaurants in our area, even more than before when my suitemate, Kathy, and I went exploring on Friday. NoMa is an extremely beautiful part of DC and is a great neighborhood to live in. I then took some downtime after this because this weekend was extremely exhausting and I knew this would be a busy week starting my internship. In my next post, I will be talking about my first few days of working in DC.

Hi! Many of you probably already know me, but in case you don’t, I’m Shannon. I am a graduating senior from University of Wisconsin – Platteville majoring in English Literature and Political Science. I was born in central Wisconsin and lived there all my life until moving to Platteville, WI for college. Last spring, an opportunity was presented to me to be able to apply to a program called The Washington Center. This program accepts students from around the globe to work, study, and live in Washington DC. When I heard about this program, I knew I had to jump at this opportunity. So here I am, one year later, living, working, and studying in the nation’s capital. This blog is meant not only to keep my friends, family, and professors informed on all I am doing here in DC, but also to answer some questions about what life is like when you are student working and living so far away from home. So I hope whoever is reading this enjoys my posts and gets to know more about what I am doing here.

Take every chance you get in life, because some things only happen once.

-Karen Gibbs