What It Actually Feels Like to Be an International Student at Georgetown

This story is a part of the Student Life Blog, a blog written by Georgetown students about their experiences and life at Georgetown.

Kiumars Afrassiabi (B'28) is a finance and management major from Dubai. He's a residential assistant, director of education for Georgetown Ventures and works at the Tech Center.

The first time I heard a group of people sing along to country music like it actually meant something, I realized how much of the American experience I had never seen up close. I didn't know the words. I didn't recognize the places in the songs. But I could tell it mattered.

Coming from Dubai, I expected big changes, but what actually surprised me were the small details. I wasn't used to how casually people treated time, like stepping out for coffee in the middle of the day or professors running discussions that wandered far beyond the class material. During my first week at Georgetown, I asked a question about the afterlife in my Problem of God class to which the professor answered then said "stop by my office later today." I assumed it meant I had messed up, but he just wanted to talk to me about a book he was writing that directly related to my question.

I also worried about things like how to address professors, when it was okay to speak up, or how to carry myself in spaces that felt less structured than what I was used to. None of it was overwhelming on its own, but together it made me feel like I was always a step behind at the start.

Discovering a New World with Friends

My friends at Georgetown decided early on that I needed what they called a proper American education. It started as a joke, but to me it felt like stepping into a world I had only seen from movies. There were all these small, everyday experiences that everyone else seemed to move through naturally, and I was seeing them for the first time. At Chipotle, they stood behind me like coaches, telling me what to say so I could keep up with the rhythm of the line. I remember repeating the order in my head, not out of fear, but because I was trying to get it right. During March Madness, they had me fill out a bracket, and I picked teams almost randomly, then sat on a crowded couch watching games unfold like they carried meaning I was just beginning to understand.

Not knowing these things didn't feel like a setback. It felt like discovery. I was seeing how people connected over food, sports and routines that had always been part of their lives. What made it meaningful was how my friends brought me into those moments. They didn't pause everything to explain it or treat me like I was behind. They just included me, let me observe, let me ask questions when I needed, and trusted that I would pick it up. It felt less like they were teaching me American culture and more like they were sharing pieces of their lives with me.

One weekend made that especially clear. On a retreat with Georgetown Ventures, we drove out to a lake house in Fishing Creek, Maryland. The air smelled like grass and charcoal. We played spikeball until our legs were sore, jumped into freezing water just to prove we could, then huddled in a hot tub with paper plates and hamburgers balanced on our knees.

As the sun went down, someone put on country music.

Where I grew up, country music existed as a punchline. It was something you referenced, not a genre you lived with. I assumed people listened to it ironically with friends. But that night, there was no irony. People sang every word. Songs about highways and small towns and pickup trucks could be heard across the lake.

I did not recognize the places in those songs, but I recognized the feeling. The details might have been American, but the emotions were universal. Since then, country music has quietly become my most played genre, a reminder that meaning often hides inside what first feels distant.

That night at the lake house made those friendships feel even more real. These were the same people who had brought me into all those small moments, and now I was sitting with them as they sang every word to songs that clearly meant something to them. I didn't know the lyrics, but I could see how much it mattered. For a second, it felt like watching something personal that I hadn't grown up with.

But no one turned to explain it or make it feel like I was missing something. They just made space for me to be there with them. That, more than anything, is what shaped how I adjusted. It wasn't about learning everything right away. It was about having people who let me experience it at my own pace. Over time, those moments stopped feeling new and started feeling familiar, not because I forced it, but because I was brought into them through relationships that made this place feel like home.

How It Started to Feel Like Home

Moments like that explain Georgetown to me better than any brochure could. As a residential assistant, I sit in the common room while residents talk about home. The accents, the cities and the family traditions vary but the feelings are shared. We trade stories about places thousands of miles apart and realize we are circling the same ideas of belonging and change.

Living in Washington, DC, increases that awareness. Headlines from across the world slip into classroom debates within hours. The global and the personal blur together. You begin to see that your background is not something you set aside here.

The biggest surprise of my time at Georgetown is not that I became more American. It is that I became more certain of who I already was. I still call my family across time zones. I still mark the holidays I grew up with. But I also carry new rituals now, which include listening to Johnny Cash, DoorDashing Chipotle and watching the Gators comeback against the Cougars with 46 seconds left on the shot clock.

Somewhere between Dubai and DC, between Persian traditions and Maryland lake houses, I stopped trying to measure how much I had changed and started noticing how my new experiences have shaped my perspective for the better.