I would like to start off this blog by saying that I am currently writing this while listening to the song Time won’t let me go by The Bravery. It just happened to start playing in my iTunes playlist and I thought how fitting it is that it miraculously played while reflecting on my time here in DC. As the title clearly states time won’t let me go and it just keeps right on going whether or not I am ready to run with it. My semester in Washington, DC has been fantastic and I would not have had it go any differently. Although it was a rather large culture shift for me from those enormous snow drifted cornfields I left in Iowa, it was for the better. My semester in the American Studies Program, more specifically, the Global Development Track, shed light on many issues in the world I had no idea were happening. From learning about sustainable development using value chain development to attending lectures on the current wild budget deficit in our government, I have expanded my knowledge farther than the normal finance and scooping hog manure on my farm.
My cohort of interns, Spring 2011
My internship gave me a large glimpse into what it takes for a piece of model legislation to become a law for states. It also gave me a reason to stay up in the news with what our current political leaders on the Hill were doing by encouraging us to attend offsite lectures. Thus far I have talked about how excited I was for my internship, what I expected, and also updated everyone on how it was coming along. Then, in the second blog I talked about the temptation to be relevant and maintain composure even when the going gets tough. Now that it is all said and done I have an even different perspective on my internship. As stated before I really enjoyed interning at my particular organization and gained great experience there. On the other hand though, I was under the impression that after being there a while they would step up the intensity of projects. This next step never came and I ended up doing many of the same things I was taught to do at the beginning. I guess that I should have expected this to happen because this is my first internship and there was not a lot of time to fit everything in. In the end, my expectations were not fully met due to me doing the same monotonous work the whole semester. Don’t get me wrong here, I am still keeping in mind what I said about the temptation to be relevant and that is not part of my dismay. The reason for saying this is due to the fact that I was hoping it would have more difficult tasks to improve my skills even farther and prepare me better for the next position I hold.
In conclusion, I want to stress that this semester in DC has by far been the best in my college career and I am super happy I chose to participate. Although I gained great experience, made memories with new friends, and learned a lot in class, it should be noted that I found an awesome girlfriend as well. Anyways, as I plan on graduating this May, I must keep on going in life, because as the song goes, time won’t let me go!
-ZD
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