Weekend Course: Washington D.C
- Abbie
- Aug 29, 2019
- 3 min read
As a part of our visa agreement we au pairs are required to earn in total 6 credits from a course at an American college or enrol in a weekend course specifically for au pairs.
A lot of au pairs take classes to further their English, many other au pairs attend the weekend courses that are available all over the US for example; New York City, Washington D.C, Florida, Los Angeles, Utah and many other places. Lots of au pairs do the weekend course so they're able to travel, visit more of the U.S and have the chance to meet other au pairs.
As you guys know I'm currently living in Charlottesville, Virginia which is very close to Washington D.C (about a 3 hour drive) so that's where I decided to do my weekend course.
The weekend course was called "Discover D.C" and it was super interesting and fun but it was really intense. The course consisted of a number of different things, pre-assignments, classroom hours, games/challenges, trips to historical landmarks/museums, assignments and post-assignments.
The total fee of the weekend course was $395 and your host family have to pay $500 towards your credits. I think I paid like $100 for an Air BnB which I split with a friend and we spent money on Uber and food throughout the weekend but it wasn't overly expensive.
Our schedule was jam packed which is totally understandable as they have to cram all of that work into barely 3 days.
During our first class we did lots of ice breakers and spent most of our time getting to know our teachers and the other 100 odd au pairs in our group. We all had to take something in from our home country and present to a small group of the au pairs which was a really cool idea. We really did have an awesome bunch of teachers who did their best to make our weekend the most interesting and fun as they could.
We learnt all about the history of D.C and all of the famous wars and historical things that happened. We learnt all about American politics and the American voting system, we also learnt all about the American presidents and the different political parties and we got to discuss our opinions on certain matters.
Paddle boating was my first activity which was insanely cool and something that I had never done and something that I will definitely be doing again when I go back to D.C. We got to see the Thomas Jefferson memorial, visit the State Capitol building, The national museum for American history, The museum of natural American history, the White House, the trump hotel and the Kennedy centre.
On the last day we got to participate in a photo challenge, we had a list of things we needed to get photos with and things we could do to get extra points for the challenge to win. This was my favourite challenge over the whole weekend and the photos for it are absolutely awesome!!
Over the duration of the weekend I met some really cool people and made some awesome friends. The thing with au pairs is we all seem to bond so well. I met a group of girls who in just a few days I really connected with and it genuinely felt like we had been friends forever. It was awesome to see D.C but the best thing about the weekend was bonding with all the great people on the course, having laughs with a great bunch of people and making memories that will last a lifetime.
Anyone who reads these posts who are interested becoming an au pair or are currently an au pair. I used au pair weekend for my weekend course and I highly recommend and the link is copied below. If you have any questions then please reach out to me and I'd be happy to answer them.
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