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

Carrying On: “Jai No” for this Hoya

I am a failed Indian. At least, that’s what another Indian girl clearly thought when she told me I was saying my own name wrong. “No, no—it’s pronounced ‘Sath-in-derr, not ‘Sat-in-dur.’ You have to soften the ‘t’ and roll the ‘r’ more,” she explained. There I was, a freshman sitting in my common room, seething with rage. Who the hell did she think she was, being that abbrasive when I had merely introduced myself out of politeness?

By September 9, 2010

Voices

Polarization at Georgetown kindles political fire

The second week of my freshman year at Georgetown, I talked my roommate into attending a H*yas for Choice meeting with me. Not for political reasons, but, clever freshman that I was, so he and I could “meet girls who will remember to take their birth control.”

By September 2, 2010

Voices

The 27 levels of compatibility I’m not looking for

The perfect man is out there. He’s dating your best friend. Or maybe they hooked up at Thirds last March and now he’s off-limits. He’s your boyfriend’s much older brother. He’s not your boyfriend. Perfect guys are out there, but for whatever reason, you’ve never actually met one who’s perfect for you.

By September 2, 2010

Voices

Power comes from within … the Earth’s crust

I’m a believer in climate change, but I can see why skeptics are hesitant to embrace the science behind it. But climate change or no, one thing about the way we produce energy in the U.S. is certain: all of our major energy resources are non-renewable.

By September 2, 2010

Voices

Carrying On: Bringing down a cult of personality

Ayn Rand’s works encourage everyone to act in their own self-interest. Her ideology is a reaction against the statist control of the economy that fascism and communism sought in 1920s and ‘30s Europe. But the American welfare state is far from the totalitarian state of Atlas Shrugged, Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia.

By September 2, 2010

Voices

Going from ghastly to gourmet at Leo O’Donovan Hall

Many freshmen find the dining hall experience is a source of anxiety that frustrates smooth transitions to college life. Here at Georgetown, that anxiety manifests itself in a single institution: the Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall. Upon arriving, most freshmen flock to Leo’s with family in tow, nervous about the quality and diversity of the food available.

By August 27, 2010

Voices

Freshman again: The trials of a transfer student

Think about how you felt when you first moved to college. Think about all of your anxieties, hopes, and expectations. Think about how you thought it would be perfect. Now imagine you hated it and left. That’s what it’s like to be a transfer student at a new school.

By August 27, 2010

Voices

Carrying On: Sperm: It’s all about the potency, baby

What am I worth? This is a question that is difficult for almost anyone to answer off the cuff. If you want to answer that question in its literal sense, you might calculate the net value of your expected lifetime earnings or assets. But how do you really calculate the value of a person?

By August 27, 2010

Voices

Summer’s Calling

Earlier this month, I had an interview for a summer job. Walking into the lobby of the building, I was apprehensive about what awaited me beyond the elevator doors. It wasn’t the interview itself that worried me—thanks to the experience I had last summer, I just wanted to see what the place looked like.

By April 29, 2010

Voices

Passed out: Voice staffers’ unconscionable Georgetown Days

On Georgetown Day of my freshman year, I woke up early to the warm and sunny Friday, grabbed my racquet, and headed off to Yates to meet a friend for a few games of squash. No one ever kicked us off the court, and since time flies when you’re sealed off in a large white box, we didn’t emerge until a couple of hours later.

By the April 29, 2010

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