Starting college all over again

Hey everyone! My name is Deanna, and I will be blogging my internship experience in Washington, D.C. for the fall semester. I'm currently a senior at Bloomsburg University with a double major in political science and communication studies.

I got my internship through The Washington Center program. TWC provides classes, professional development seminars, networking opportunities, and internship/career counseling for students all around the country and the world. TWC helped me to find my internship with a nonprofit organization known as The Coalition for Juvenile Justice.

We drove over three and a half hours (about four total with the traffic in Maryland) to get to Washington. In the days leading up to move in day, it really felt like I was starting college all over again.

I was moving almost four hours away where I knew nobody. I knew one other student from BU, who was doing the program too (and coincidentally met a third student from BU who was doing the program as well).

Some of the other interns I met on the first day.
I’m in the middle in the light blue shirt!

I was nervous, but I knew I was about to begin the experience of a lifetime.

The first two days so far have been filled with meeting plenty of other interns as well as orientation events and seminars. I went to a few sessions to teach me how to use the metro to get to my internship site and websites to find free/low cost things to do around the city.

So far I have met people from Texas, Wisconsin, New York, Maine, Iowa, Ohio, and international students from Vietnam and Mexico. The rest of welcome weekend will include some adventuring out into the city.

Stay tuned!

— Deanna Campion, a senior dual political science and communication studies major #ProfessionalU