Metropolitan Life

My first week of my summer in DC is almost over; it seems like an age ago that I was completing my last final at W&M when in reality it has only been a week and a half. Strangely, the first nervous jitters and anxiety that I felt leaving home for a whole entire summer and moving into my apartment on Sunday afternoon have now completely dissipated. It took a surprisingly short time to adjust to the hustle and bustle of our nation’s capital, the organized chaos of the metro, a 9 to 5 schedule, wearing “grown-up clothes”, and waking up way earlier than 9am (something I haven’t had to do since high school). The straight 6 hours we have in class was at first difficult to adjust to but class is never short of excitement. Already during this first week of class (designed to include guest lectures and site visits that pertain to our subject of New Media), we’ve heard from speakers from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and DC Shorts film festival and we’ve visited the headquarters of both C-SPAN and National Geographic Society. Hearing from such an amazing collection of individuals and representatives of such hallowed institutions has already confirmed that this summer is going to be one of the most engaging and fulfilling summers of my college career and perhaps my life.

Outside National Geographic

Walking into the doors of National Geographic for the first time, an excitement akin to something I felt as a little kid waiting for Christmas morning to finally arrive overtook me. Knowing that in little over a week I will be working at such a prestigious and fantastic institution is a thrilling sensation. It’s still hard to believe that I was lucky enough to secure an internship in one of world’s foremost publication institutions let alone an internship that is perfectly related to what I hope to pursue as a career. It’s as if I happened to be in the right place and the right time to have applied and been included in such an amazing program and opportunity as the W&M DC Summer Institute. This is the first time that New Media Institute has been included in the summer program, joining the already established and proven successful National Security and Community Engagement Institutes. I feel privileged to be one of the first New Media Summer Institute fellows and also to have the wonderful guidance of Professor Ann Marie Stock as our instructor for the class.

Most of all I feel lucky that I get the chance to discover the wonders of DC this summer. As an admirer of the city dweller’s life, I’ve always wanted to live the metropolitan life and this summer I hope to do just that. I’ve already spent a great afternoon enjoying the sunshine at Smithsonian National Zoological Park and who knows what else I’ll be doing over the next weeks, the possibilities seem endless in a city like DC.