Voices

Voices is the Op-Ed and personal essay section of The Georgetown Voice. It features the real narratives of diverse students from nearly every corner on campus, seeking to tell some of the incredibly important and yet oft-unheard stories that affect life in and out of Georgetown.

Voices

Outdated data sweep poverty under the rug

Remember the 1960s? Hippies, free love, Vietnam, and civil rights? Our country’s current poverty measure was created during these distant and tumultuous years, with no adjustments since. Almost 50 years ago, economist Mollie Orshansky took the Department of Agriculture’s food plans and calculations of minimum need for different family types, and calculated the poverty threshold by multiplying the lowest, or “economy,” food plan by three, since it was determined that families spent approximately one third of their income on food.

By the April 29, 2010

Voices

Student solidarity in wake of recent sexual assaults

The recent cases of high-profile sexual assaults have once again reminded Georgetown students and administrators that sexual violence exists in our community. On a campus where approximately one in four women will experience sexual violence in their time on the Hilltop, it is truly unfortunate that it takes high-profile attacks for the community to pay attention to the problem of sexual assault. Sexual assault is a perpetual reality for many women on our campus, and assaults are happening weekly whether we wish to acknowledge them or not.

By April 29, 2010

Voices

Town versus gown: Why can’t we be friends?

Of all the bad things to come out of last winter’s snowstorms, the founding of student group Georgetown Good Samaritans might end up being the most damaging for the University. Losing President’s Day and nearly all city services was bad, but only Georgetown Good Samaritans perpetuated a damaging lie: That the neighbors would accept living next to students, if only we were nicer to them.

By April 22, 2010

Voices

Binge, boot, and rally: The best night of your life?

The first time I drank vodka, I didn’t throw up everywhere. Instead, my late night Skyy-fueled antics drove me to collapse in a Starbucks the morning of my 16th birthday. To make matters worse, two men at Starbucks called an ambulance, but a fire truck came instead. I narrowly avoided a hospital visit. But the worst part was not the eventual grounding or the fainting, but the shame I felt for behaving so recklessly. My best friend had lost her brother only months earlier to alcohol poisoning during a hazing incident. It was her mom who caught me that morning.

By April 22, 2010

Voices

The Happiest Place on Earth

Thanks to summer jobs, I haven’t been able to join my family on many of our recent summer vacations. At first I didn’t really mind—skipping family trips meant having the house to myself for a week to live as slovenly as I desire (which is quite slovenly, if I do say so myself). After the initial euphoria of living alone for a week wears off, though—usually after about 12 hours, when I notice that no one has washed my dirty plates—I always come to the same conclusion. As grating as being in a confined space with my family can be after seven or eight days, most of my best stories actually come from family vacations. It is the sort of thing that I really miss now that I have fewer and fewer opportunities to make new stories.

By April 22, 2010

Voices

I have a quote for you, New York Stock Exchange

Last weekend, at the behest of my finance professor, I went on the Business School’s annual New York trip. A friend of mine was also going on the trip, so I figured I’d at least be able to hang out with him for a few days in New York City and check out the New York Stock Exchange and a few banks. The first Wall Street firm we visited began by serving our group a continental breakfast and talking to us about the financial services industry, new developments at the company, and a bit about their recruiting process. Then we got to speak to some employees. I was chatting up one of their bond traders, and after a few minutes I learned that he worked on a desk that traded mortgage-backed securities—the financial instruments that blew a hole in the economy.

By April 22, 2010

Voices

The Love Song of Maxwell Q. Maxwell (and biceps)

It all began in first grade, when our class learned how to (roughly) translate the English alphabet into Egyptian hieroglyphs. I wrote a poem for a girl named Alphonsine* in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sure, I got sick of writing hieroglyphs after the first two lines (the little eagle things are hard, man), and eventually decided to finish the last two lines in plain-old English, but hey! I was hot stuff—four lines of panty-melting, swoon-inducing, first-grade creativity. Mentally, ladies were putty in my ink-stained, booger-laden hands.

By April 15, 2010

Voices

Great Britain: Greatest Hits

It is a long-standing tradition that as a columnist studying abroad, I am permitted one column per semester to devote to the foreign land where I live. Since I used up all of my armchair sociology on essays for the Berkley Center, I’ve decided to take a slightly less self-indulgent route with this column. Having spent the past fortnight on a road trip around Britain with my uncle, I’m going to provide you with some more useful insight than “Why I think Catholics and Protestants still don’t get along in Glasgow.” I’m going to try my hand at travel writing.

By April 15, 2010

Voices

Let me know, Monroe: Will you stay or will you go?

I love college, but if someone offered me a $2 million-a-year job, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second—I’d be gone. Sadly, that job offer isn’t coming my way any time soon. It’s absurd to consider it even a possibility. None of my sophomore classmates have any kind of skills that valuable. That is, except for one. Greg Monroe must love college more than Asher Roth, because that job offer has been in his hands for weeks now, and he’s still sitting in class. Professional basketball and its riches await the 6-foot-11-inch center, who has until April 25 to declare for the NBA draft.

By April 15, 2010

Voices

The nanny diaries: From Mexico, with love

In a speech to his constituents in Las Vegas this past weekend Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) promised that “we’re going to come back, we’re going to have immigration reform now.” This proposition was most likely politically motivated—as the 2010 census will confirm, over a fifth of the Nevada electorate is Hispanic. In San Diego, my hometown, nearly a third of the population is Hispanic. Needless to say, their vote and their issues are too great for any successful politician to ignore. While it can be easy to think about immigration as a purely political issue, the personal impact of immigration policy deserves attention, too.

By April 14, 2010

Voices

Internships: Opportunities or virtual slavery?

Yesterday, I spent about half an hour interviewing over the phone. If I’m lucky and the interview turns out to be a success, I will have the opportunity to spend the summer away from my family and friends, in “accommodations” provided by my employer, working 40-hour weeks, and earning exactly zero dollars. This might sound terrifying to some people. Modern-day indentured servitude, others might call it. And yet I’m kind of hoping I get the job.

By April 8, 2010

Voices

A Savage approach to sex-ed

Everything I learned about sex I learned from Dan Savage. I wish that was a gross exaggeration, but it’s not. I’ve spent most of my life ignorant of, misinformed about, or terrified of sex. For the uninitiated, Dan Savage is an internationally-syndicated sex and relationship advice columnist. Think a male, gay, “Dear Abby” who instructs readers on how to pull off things like threesomes and polyamory instead of successful dinner parties.

By April 7, 2010

Voices

Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice resorts to plan B

Based on reader comments on the Voice’s and The Hoya’s websites, students reacted almost uniformly to students chaining themselves to the statue of John Carroll as part of a Plan A: Hoyas they agreed with the protest’s cause, but not with the way in which it was executed. And with protesters demanding the on-campus sale of condoms as if it was a matter of life or death and shouting fabrications at families visiting for Georgetown Admissions Ambassador Program weekend ... it was hard to disagree.

By April 7, 2010

Voices

Georgetown achieves non-Christian dharma

As I toured Georgetown one final time before making my college decision, the question “Would I fit in at a Catholic university?” lingered in my mind. I was raised Hindu, but my religion never played a large role in my life. During my childhood, I was introduced to my religion’s core values and beliefs, but never explored anything beyond the basics. However, that’s not to say that I don’t appreciate religion’s role in society. Religion can unite communities and restore people’s faith.

By April 7, 2010

Voices

Turnitin.com turns profit on students’ work

Georgetown University prides itself on a strong ethical tradition. In my own journalism masters program, an ethics class is one of two mandatory graduation requirements. The University also boasts a policy-oriented ethics institute whose mission is to “serve as an unequalled resource for those who research and study ethics, as well as those who debate and make public policy.”

By March 25, 2010

Voices

One student’s premeditated path to medicine

Even before you get to college, people ask what you want to major in, a choice that could set out what you’re doing for the rest for your life. You did pretty well in all your math and science classes in high school: all APs, all fives, no big deal. So you say that you’ll go pre-med. Hey, after all, a doctor’s salary doesn’t sound too shabby.

By March 25, 2010

Voices

Oh V.P. Magoo, you’ve done it again!

Vice President Joe Biden is one of the most recognizable men in the country. He is Barack Obama’s right-hand man. He helped pass universal healthcare. But when he said, “this is a big fucking deal” on national television, Biden cemented his place in my heart. Biden was embracing the president in front of television cameras and microphones, and he probably thought that he was speaking out of range when he blurted out this statement to his boss. He was not.

By March 25, 2010

Voices

Agoraphobia on the Hilltop: Unreasonable insularity

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.

By March 25, 2010

Voices

This Georgetown Life: The Blarney Stone, Voice Staffers’ Legendary St. Patty’s Days

My friends and I began drinking around 10:30 a.m., and after a few beers we were ready to “go to the parade.” By noon I was six beers in and showing no signs of slowing down. The last thing I remember from that day is downing Irish car bombs with my friend and her mom at six in the evening. I woke up the next morning to see the DVD menu for Atonement playing on a loop on my computer screen and a half-eaten hero resting on my chest.

By the March 17, 2010

Voices

You had me at hello, so why the silence now?

In many cultures, a casual hello is expected during sidewalk run-ins, a wave across the bar to a classmate is the norm, and even a smile to a current fling wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. But at Georgetown we suppress the wave, the hello, the smile. We walk with heads held high and cell phones held higher, not because we really have so many people to text or call, but because the cell phone is a barricade behind which we feign ignorance to passing glances and mumbled hellos.

By March 17, 2010