Kiumars Afrassiabi, a finance and management major from Dubai, described his experience as an international student at Georgetown University in a blog post published on Apr. 21. Afrassiabi, who is part of the class of 2028, works as a residential assistant and director of education for Georgetown Ventures while also holding a job at the Tech Center.
Afrassiabi said that while he expected significant changes moving from Dubai to Washington, D.C., it was the small details that surprised him most. He wrote about how cultural differences surfaced in everyday interactions, such as casual approaches to time and informal classroom discussions with professors. “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,” Afrassiabi said.
He also discussed his initial concerns about navigating academic etiquette and social norms on campus but found support through friends who introduced him to various aspects of American culture. “My friends at Georgetown decided early on that I needed what they called a proper American education,” he wrote. These included learning how to order food at Chipotle and participating in March Madness by filling out brackets.
A key moment for Afrassiabi came during a retreat with Georgetown Ventures at Fishing Creek, Maryland. There he experienced country music firsthand among peers: “Where I grew up, country music existed as a punchline… But that night, there was no irony. People sang every word.” He explained how these shared moments helped him feel included without pressure or expectation: “They just made space for me to be there with them… It wasn’t about learning everything right away. It was about having people who let me experience it at my own pace.”
Afrassiabi reflected on finding common ground among students from diverse backgrounds in residence halls and classrooms where global issues are often discussed alongside personal stories: “The accents, the cities and the family traditions vary but the feelings are shared.” He concluded by saying his biggest surprise has been becoming more certain of his identity rather than simply assimilating: “Somewhere between Dubai and DC… I stopped trying to measure how much I had changed and started noticing how my new experiences have shaped my perspective for the better.”
