Ask Georgetown students to list the top five reasons they chose this school, and the one thing that almost everyone will include is the location. Here we have the best of both worlds: a beautiful campus on a hilltop overlooking our nation’s bustling capital. But how often do Hoyas really venture beyond the brick paths of M Street and cross over to the cemented reality of what is commonly known as Pennsylvania Avenue? Not very often.
This insularity is surprising, especially because so much of the Georgetown student body consists of experienced world travelers. If you have gone through New Student Orientation, you have met at least one person who has built a house in Costa Rica, another who splits the year living in England and Italy but is actually American, and at least ten people who summer in Spain with their families. With all this globe-trotting, why is Third’s on Wisconsin Avenue the farthest Hoyas dare to travel on a Thursday night? The irony of the situation is obvious: Georgetown students come from all over the world, but once they get to campus, they seem stuck on the Hilltop.
Part of the problem comes from getting too comfortable on campus. When it finally feels like you’ve gotten to know your way around campus, it is difficult to find the motivation to explore what’s beyond the front gates. It seems so much easier to seclude yourself at a table in a corner of Lau and cram for a statistics test than it is to navigate the streets of Washington. Although it might seem like it’s the responsible choice to sit and study, at the end of the day—at the end of the four years—the memories made off campus will be more important than the equations you learned for your test.
Upon stepping onto Georgetown’s campus, students take it upon themselves to fulfill the philosophy of “Cura Personalis.” As members of a Jesuit community, it is our responsibility to educate the entire person. This doesn’t just mean universal philosophy and theology requirements. It means taking the initiative to enrich all aspects of your life—intellectual, spiritual, and cultural. There are many ways to go about doing this. You could take an art history class that requires visiting a museum, participate in any of the community service clubs on campus, see a performance at the Kennedy Center, or just sit on the front lawn and strike up a conversation with a friend or a complete stranger.
To its advantage, Georgetown is located in a city rife with opportunities for personal growth.
For us, first semester was all about getting acclimated to college life in general. Being on campus was overwhelming enough without having to think about exploring a new city. Coming back second semester, however, we realized it was time to go to Barnes and Noble and make the investment in a “What to Do in D.C.” book. We realized it would be pathetic to look back in four years and realize that we didn’t know anything about the city in which we lived.
Whether you are a seasoned traveler or a homebody, this is a city worth getting to know. Living in Washington, D.C. is just as cool as living in any other major city. Embrace this opportunity. The only thing left to do now is get out of Lau, get on a GUTS bus, and go.
–Emily Fink (COL ’13) and Marcie King (COL ’13)
