This blog post details some of my Learning by Doing experiences as an undergraduate student who lived for a short time in Washington D.C.
Where and What
My one big experience as an undergrad was living in D.C., off and on, for a total of one academic year.
I worked as a co-op (Co-operative Education) student while I was an undergraduate at the University of South Florida (USF). The program structure was to work one quarter then go back to school a quarter. The time frame was during 1970 and 1971.
I spend four quarters, thus an entire academic year, as a co-op student at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Because I was going to school full-time, year round, I still was able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years, including that academic year as a co-op student.
A group of four or five of us, all guys from USF, were in the same program at NASA. When we left, another similar-sized cohort would replace us at NASA.
After I returned home each quarter I went back to the store where I worked all the way through high school and college. As a result, I was able to use some of those earnings to help pay for my college tuition. Since I lived at home, there was no room-and-board for college.
The D.C. experience was my first time away from home. Also, my fist time living in a large metropolitan area.
Worse yet, my first time living with a group of guys who were not so much neat freaks as I was!
Program Structure
Each quarter in D.C. we rotated into a different office at NASA, assisting with day-to-day program management tasks. Mostly, I learned about the process of managing U.S. Government funded programs.
As expected, there were lots of reports with meetings to discuss those reports. Much of the activity centered around tracking spending so as not to get ahead of what had been allocated to each program.
As students, we were included in a number of normal office activities. For example, one quarter I got to take a trip on a private jet to an IBM facility in New York.
Another term, I spent several days at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
Interestingly, the D.C. crowd called Huntsville, a U.S. Army facility, “Huntspatch.” That name was a takeoff on Dogpatch, an old cartoon about back-woods rednecks. Therefore, they viewed it as backward and unrefined.
I did not visit the launch facility in Cape Canaveral.
Although I never got to meet him, Neil Armstrong was assigned to NASA Headquarters during the time period I was in D.C. He was the first man to walk on the moon, so he was viewed as a celebrity. That moon walk took place during Apollo 11.
The photo of Florida I have in my home office (see below) was taken during Armstrong’s space flight, prior to the command-and-service module leaving earth orbit.
I found the photo stuck behind a cabinet in the graphics department at NASA. They told me I could take it, so I did!
Visible in the photo are the west and east coasts of Florida, Tampa Bay, the Gulf of Mexico (lower half of the picture), and the Atlantic Ocean (upper half of the picture).
Life in Washington D.C.
As expected, a group of three or four of us would take out a short-term apartment rental each quarter. We lived in various places in and around D.C., including Virginia and Maryland.
Some terms we commuted into D.C. by driving. Other terms we used the bus.
We were all business majors, and all fairly nerdy. As a result, there were no wild parties.
None of us could cook, but somehow we survived. We did try to fry some chicken – once. The outcome wasn’t good!
Our first term in D.C. we rented the first floor of an old house inside the District.
Our last night there we received a knock at the door. A plain-clothed police officer asked permission to walk through the house and arrest someone who was on our back porch! We told him that was fine. Yes, that’s life in the big city!
We all drove individually to D.C., which for me was a long commute as I was living in Tampa, Florida at the time. In addition, being from Florida, living in D.C. was my first time experiencing extremely cold weather, as well as snow.
The NASA Headquarters building faced the mall in D.C. Consequently, I was able to go out at lunch time to walk around to sites such as the National Archives, the Smithsonian Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.
In addition, there was a high-rise based shopping area a short distance away from the NASA office, which gave access to stores.
Learning by Doing!
For me, take-aways from the experience included much-needed improvements in my professional demeanor. However, to get those improvements I had to be teachable.
It was my first experience working in a large office setting that used a fairly rigid command-and-control structure. As such, I got to watch the interactions between co-workers; some were good, some bad!
Sometimes, learning by doing means we learn best by observation. Other time, by being a good listener.
I learned that even in a downtown office, people would come in off the street and go through desks looking for valuables.