An Inside Look at Living in Downtown DC as a Georgetown Student in the CALL

May 1, 2023
experiential learning, Student Experience, The CALL

"Being off campus and being a part of this city — having to walk to work, for example — I think that adds to the richness of the experience.”

Share this by Email Growing up in his native Zimbabwe and attending high school in Armenia, Nyasha Gandawa (B’23) has always been attracted to a global education.

With dreams of becoming an economist at the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, studying at Georgetown and living in Washington, DC, was a no-brainer for Gandawa.

“The location of Georgetown being in Washington, DC, brought about a really great opportunity for me,” Gandawa said. “I was interested in being a part of a historical narrative.”

After spending his first three years on the Hilltop, Gandawa took advantage of an opportunity to live even closer to the epicenter of national policymaking for his final two semesters.

Gandawa is part of the Capitol Applied Learning Labs (CALL) at Georgetown, in which undergraduates spend a semester living and taking classes in downtown DC. As part of the program, CALL students also undertake professional experiences — from internships to research programs and entrepreneurial ventures — to help them pursue and discover their own professional interests.

Gandawa enjoyed his fall semester in the CALL so much he decided to spend his last semester at Georgetown there too. We followed Gandawa through the streets of DC to get a glimpse of his year as a student in the CALL program, from conducting research in the Library of Congress as an intern to attending class downtown at the CALL and exploring the cultural hub of the city on U Street.

Read the full story here.