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Blue and Gray, Please Be Honest

Nothing says spring on the Hilltop like being boxed into a corner by a tour group on your way to class.

In my experience, while college tours seem informative as a naive senior in high school, seeing them as an actual college student has given me a greater appreciation for the level of BS that every school is able to make up. In honor of this year’s GAAP weekends and possible future Hoyas, here’s a more honest look at Georgetown’s campus.

Get excited

First, there’s Dahlgren Quad, home of one of our beautiful chapels. Georgetown is a Jesuit university–but don’t worry, we tokenize every other religion to make up for it. Look up and you’ll see a clock with some handles. This is the last time you’ll ever hear about it. This is a step where a lot of Presidents have stood. Sorry, did I hear someone say Bill Clinton?

Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton?

Bill Clinton. Bill. Clinton.

Have you heard of him? His name is Bill Clinton, and he went to Georgetown. Bill Clinton.

If you’ll follow me, up next is the Village A rooftop, overlooking the scenic Rosslyn skyline. You won’t have a chance of getting an apartment here until you’re a junior, but you might as well live here the first month of your freshman year. I will clearly avoid mentioning the plethora of beer cans scattered on the ground, but we all see them.

So, we’re going to be entering the Healy Family Student Center, or as students call it, HFSC. This building was designed with a lot of student input. One thing we heard was that students needed a place to plug in all their devices, so it’s full of outlets that don’t work. We also incorporated new studies that showed that green space and natural light help students study, so this ivy is real. I know because one time I saw a rat jump out of it.

A similar situation may also be found on a Vil A rooftop

Now we’ll be passing Hilltoss, one of our Corp locations. The Corp is the largest student-run non-profit in the world, making $5 million each year (assuming they’re not bankrupt). Everyone from the CEO to the barista handing you your coffee is a student employee and will tell you about it every time you happen to even breathe their way.

Next we have our dining hall, Leo O’Donovan Hall. If you’d like to grab a few croissants after the tour from the lovely-but-somehow-consistently-dysfunctional Whisk, it will probably cost you upwards of tuition. Leo’s is also great because as a child I loved the movie Ratatouille, and Georgetown has allowed me to experience the live action version.

This is Red Square, where we have our farmers’ market every Wednesday when it’s warm out. It’s the only time you’ll feel joy on this campus.

An avocado, thankss!

Finally, as we enter Leavey we’ll be passing by the offices of GUASFCU, the most needless acronym ever created. The likelihood of both getting into Georgetown and GUAFSCU is less than getting struck by lightning while simultaneously winning the lottery. However, you have worse chances of getting into a club that just goes out to eat. If you love the Common App process, you’ll love Georgetown clubs.

That concludes our honest tour of Georgetown’s campus. Blue and Gray, feel free to incorporate any of this student-sourced information into a new and improved (more accurate) tour format for prospective Hoyas!

Photos/Gifs: giphy.com, goldstar.com

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Georgetown Crushes – Valentine’s Day and Everyday

After a brief break, Valentine’s Day is back on my list of favorite holidays.

My grade school self loved Valentine’s Day — a lovely day of receiving candy from each of my third grade classmates. My friends and I prepared for this important holiday by meticulously constructing “Valentine Mailboxes” and carefully addressing pieces of candy to all of our classmates, with hearts drawn on the ones reserved for our best friends and the boys we like liked.

In high school, Valentine’s Day got more complicated — with raging hormones, a relative lack of driver’s licenses and a slew of ambiguously-defined relationships, Valentine’s Day was full of awkwardness, parent drivers and unrequited love.

Valentine’s Day has grown on me as I have (almost) gotten over no longer receiving candy from each of my classmates. I have become more confident in unashamedly buying myself chocolate and have recognized the holiday as a time to remind all of my loved ones how much I care about them.

In celebration of this holiday about love, I have categorized the types of crushes the average Georgetown student is prone to having.

1. Nerdy classmate crush 

The adorably sweet nerd who raises their hand a lot in discussion section and always has beautifully succinct and articulate points to make. Thank you for your nerdiness and for sharing your long, detailed study guides with the entire class in an A+ display of cura personalis.

2. Coffee

With a student body eager to juggle a full class schedule, on- and off-campus jobs and internships, research positions, club leadership and a slew of meetings on the G-cal, coffee is held in high esteem on the Hilltop.

Large quantities of caffeine are readily available from the adorable blue-awning of Saxbys just two blocks from campus or — if you must — from various outposts of the largest student-run nonprofit corporation in the world1, which is more than willing to take all of your flex dollars.

3. Epi Quesadilla

How many people/foodstuffs in your life are faithfully there for you regardless of your level of sobriety AND readily provide you with sides of guacamole, salsa and sour cream??

4E would like to assert that the Epi quesadilla is NOT just a 2 a.m. post-Brown House booty call snack. This wholesome and respectable delicacy is deserving of your love at all hours of the day.

4. Sweet Professor

Here we have the unbelievably kind professor who has been teaching at Georgetown longer than you have been alive and is still so clearly in love with the material they get to teach you. True, their love of nineteenth-century British poetry will always come before you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate their extensive scarf collection and the way they’ve coordinated the perfect scarf for every outfit from afar.

4E wants you to act on your crushes, Georgetown! Show all of the “crushes” in your life — romantic, platonic, nerdy, caffeine-containing or otherwise — how much you appreciate them.

______________

  1. Taken from the segment of the Blue and Gray tour seen in the HSFC. Who doesn’t love a good study session punctuated by a recitation of the wonders of ~The Corp~?

Photos/Gifs: giphy.com, georgetown.edu

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What Clubs Famous People Would Be In At Georgetown

As one of the top 20 schools in the U.S. (and home to the hottest college men, according to Tinder), Georgetown is generally accepted as a place for the ~elite~.

We’re not an Ivy but… yeah, pretty much.

While a fair number of VIPs have walked these hallowed halls (I sometimes daydream about running into Bradley Cooper in the dish return at Leo’s), with a 16% acceptance rate, it’s hard to “catch ‘em all.”

I still cringe…

Once you’ve figured out what famous Hoya you are, come take a break from procrastinating for finals reality with me and imagine what clubs your favorite celebs would be in if they had sported the good ol’ blue and gray.

*wipes away tear*

The Kardashians – Thirty-Seventh

We all know that these gals enjoy the finer things in life. I can’t attest to their academic aspirations, but I have a good feeling that if Kardashoyans existed, they would be major contributors to Georgetown’s premier lifestyle and fashion blog. #Yeezys #For #All

If you stop reading 4E, Kim will be mad. 

Emma Watson – Blue and Gray

This is the friend that you want to hate but can’t because they’re just too nice. Smart, beautiful, vaguely international—they make Georgetown look damn good. You may resent this pal’s borderline *magical* talents, but you have to admit that this kid is going places.

A typical Georgetown know-it-all.

Mark Ruffalo – The Corp

To all my Ruffalovers out there, this one’s for you. This Bernie Bro can sport a knit fleece like no other, and will engage you in a long-winded discussion on conspiracy theories if you so much as whisper the words “inside job.” Can’t you imagine the man behind The Hulk, once dubbed a “sentient farmer’s market,” serving you your double shot of espresso at Midnight MUG with a crinkly, good-natured smile? We know we can.

That woven bracelet tho :-O

Ivanka Trump – GUASFCU

The First Daughter was a student in the MSB for two years before transferring to Penn (*cough* complicit). Her penchant for fancy shoes and ambiguous business buzz-words would make her a prime candidate for Georgetown’s most prestigious financial association.

If you don’t sleep in a suit, are you really an MSBro?

Zac Efron – GUGS

The High School Musical and Neighbors star is truly a man of the people. For this reason, he’d be a member of one of Georgetown’s most accepting clubs, flipping delicious meat spheres burgers for the masses on Friday afternoons. *sings We’re All In This Together with added enthusiasm*

 
If only Georgetown had real frats…
 
 
Stay warm, people. If Bradley Cooper made it through finals, so can we.
 
 
Photos/GIFS: youtube.com, giphy.com, fastccompany.net
 
 
 
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What to Do on GAAP Weekend: Prospective Student Edition

Dear Class of 2021, and so on and so forth,

WELCOME to the Hilltop. D.C. or, as both the cool kids and the geotag call it, “the District,”  is breathtakingly beautiful and the Georgetown bubble (aka my happy place) is nestled in a cozy corner of this vibrant and inspiring city. Home to an ambitious and driven student body, professors for whom one is willing to spend hours studying on Lau 4 and one well-loved bulldog, Georgetown is well worth visiting. Sign up to have a Blue and Gray tour guide escort you along patios strewn with empty beer cans the Vil A rooftops and point out where Bill Clinton lived in Harbin Hall, before he left communal bathrooms and his cluster for a marginally-more-upscale White House residence. Additionally, please make note of following important “Do’s and Don’ts” of visiting our campus.

Don’t try to join the meme page

Please don’t pretend that you’re a non-conforming Jesuit teen. Prep school has not prepared you for this type of meme mastery. One ~incredibly persuasive~ reason to attend this university and surround yourself with peers who also did quite well on the SAT, is the high caliber of meme quality that you will find here. However, seeing as you don’t go here (yet), you probably won’t be able to fully appreciate our self-deprecating jokes. Additionally, by bemoaning the state of Leo’s, Lau and the basketball program, the meme page fails to highlight the many things that make Georgetown so wonderful, and we don’t want you to get the wrong impression.

Don’t disrespect Leo’s

What are the odds that Leo’s will look like the Hogwarts’ Great Hall after the remodel? (unfortunately slim..)

To the hordes of red-sweatshirt clad minions getting WAY too excited about the weird ice cream flavors and groups of parents concernedly poking at salads, I don’t really understand why you are here. First of all, it’s O’Donovan’s by the Waterfront, to you. You are not allowed to poke fun at Leo’s mysterious lack of forks, soggy scrambled eggs, or constant abundance of gross Rum Raisin ice cream unless you have spent 14-18 meals a week in this fine establishment, and Kim Kim knows you by name. Second, while Georgetown is truly an incredible place, our on-campus dining options are not the reason that my future children’s first words will be “Hoya Saxa.”

Don’t brag about going to Georgetown “Frat Parties”

I would like to help you make the important distinction between a “frat party” and a party (or awkward, sweaty gathering) thrown by a frat in a cramped and dimly lit Henle apartment. I suppose I am powerless to stop you from putting a video of yourself singing along to Closer on your Snapchat story or taking a shot of Vanilla Burnett’s (Disclaimer: teen drinking is very bad, and also illegal). Just know that you’re not as cool as you think you are.

Do bask in the glory of Healy Hall

Does looking up at the Healy clock tower give you chills? Copley Lawn, peppered with Hoyas studying on blankets, throwing frisbees and laughing with their friends, feels so perfectly collegiate. The idyllic-ness of the hundreds of color-coordinated tulips gently swaying in the breeze by the front gates (almost) justifies the exorbitant cost of arranging such botanical displays. Can you resist taking a picture with John Carroll? Of course not. He is the GOAT, and you probably won’t get in if you don’t document meeting him (in statue form). Please note, this is not all too good to be true. I can assure you that one year later, when I am hammocking with my favorite people on the front lawn, it still feels just as magical.

A few additional points of clarification:

  • If you got the impression on your tour that The Corp rules this campus, this intuition is quite correct.
  • Jack the Bulldog and I are in an exclusive relationship. Take as many pictures with him as you would like, but he and I have already booked a date for our Dahlgren Chapel wedding.

Photos/gifs: msfs.georgetown.edu, giphy.com, facebook.com

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Best of Georgetown’s Facebook Meme Page

For the past several months, meme culture has permeated the very fabric of American society. Everywhere you look, there are dank (or not so dank) memes. Despite the seemingly ubiquitous nature of memery, there has been a noticeable void on Georgetown’s campus… until now. In the past few weeks, the Facebook page known as “Georgetown Memes for Nonconforming Jesuit Teens” has taken the Hilltop by storm, with memes made by and made for Georgetown’s very own Hoyas.

This page really tackles some hot issues at Georgetown with prime memery. Here, we’ve compiled some of the most ~fire~ of these memes for your viewing pleasure:

Ita Uduebo takes on the ridiculous pressure and exclusivity of club culture at Georgetown with this incredible meme:

Emily Saadi similarly offers some quality satirical commentary on diversity at Georgetown:

John Matthews contributed a quality meme on being blatantly unprepared for class, as I am sure many Hoyas can relate to:

There have been a number of impressive Leo’s memes as well. Allison Kozeracki, for instance, contributed this beautiful one:

Lastly, Sayako Quinlan contributed one of my personal favorite memes on the culture of relationships at Georgetown. Truly an A+ meme:

While these are just a few of 4E’s favorites, join the “Georgetown Memes For Non-Comforming Jesuit Teens” Facebook group for an even wider selection of prime meme material. I look forward to getting that notification that “_____ has requested to join.”

Photos/Gifs: giphy.com, bbc.co.uk