Krystal Guang
Impression of DC
Krystal Guang
Summer 2015
After I got accepted to the DC program, I did not expect a lot – I thought it would just be a boring twomonths with a busy schedule of homework and interning without some fun things to do. However, after I lived here for almost two months, my impression of DC changed. It’s no longer a “vague” city to me. It’s now a city that I have experienced and explored with joy.
My very first visit to DC happened in high school. Before I made up my mind and decided to go to college in the U.S., I participated in a winter camp to come to the U.S. and visited colleges. It was the first time I had ever been to the U.S., and I was extremely excited. From west coast to east coast, I’ve visited a lot of places and met lots of people in colleges both staff and students. They introduced us to what American colleges are like, what types of courses are offered and what we can achieve on campus. The active student clubs and the interactive classes impressed me. During that trip, DC didn’t make much of an impression on me compared to big cities like LA and New York City. I took lots of picture of the monuments and the White House with the thinking that it is the capital of the United States. But now, DC means more to me.
Before I came to DC for this internship program, I thought I had enough knowledge of the American society after three years in college. However, interning and studying in DC gives me a better look at DC and the American society. The course I am taking here is a democracy class. I am from China, and the government is always criticized of having no democracy, so I don’t have special feelings or an interest in democracy. But after I took the course, I started to read news about democracy online. I started to pay attention to what was happening in the Hong Kong protest and Greece debt crisis. I started to pay attention to things that I was not interested in. I think it’s a good tendency for me to explore new things. In addition, the internship course session not only helps me to prepare myself for my future career, it also gives me a chance to know the American society better. Meeting alumni and listening to their stories in BU and Washington is valuable and helpful. And for a documentary assignment, I watched “Inequality for all,” which shows the income distribution inequality in the U.S. This draws my attention because it is also a problem in China.
Besides work and studying, exploring DC by walking becomes my interest. Sometimes I will walk on the street after dinner before the sunset. At first, the weather in DC bothered me a lot. It was so hot and humid, and it rains like crazy!!! But I changed my mind about the weather after I saw something extremely beautiful! One day after class I thought I saw a nice painting in the sky. My friends and I just couldn’t stop saying how beautiful it was! I was surprised by it and am hoping see something like that during my last three weeks in DC.
Beautiful Sky in DC
Krystal is a rising senior studying business and interning at GWU.
