Alex Watson

COL ’15
Age: 21
Hometown: Miami, Fla.
Major: Government
Minor: English

Where are you from? Compare and contrast it to Georgetown. Where are you more comfortable?
I was born in Miami, lived in south Florida for 18 years and then my dad got a job in Chicago so we moved there after graduation so now I live in a suburb north of Chicago. My high school was pretty homogenous so my experience at Georgetown has been pretty similar in terms of socioeconomic status and race. In terms of experiences, people at Georgetown are definitely more diverse, which has just been really. Back home, everyone’s the same, little tiny bubble and obviously Georgetown is a bubble, too, but I think less so.  

What do you do for “me time”?
There’s not a lot of me time because I’m always working, I just try and do a lot so I don’t really end up having me time. I try and go to the gym. I try and read during my free time. Honestly, I spend so much time reading for class that I like to vegetate and hang out with friends and do absolutely nothing. Watch TV.

Where and with whom do you feel most comfortable with at Georgetown?
When I know that I have nothing to do. On a Friday when I can just hang out on the lawn with guys in the fraternity. When there’s nothing to do and it’s beautiful weather out, I feel most comfortable and relaxed.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Acknowledge that people aren’t your idealized version of them. To be realistic about who other people are because I tend to have a very optimistic view of people, like to a fault. And that might end up hurting you, obviously. Trying to be realistic about those things is probably one of the hardest things because I don’t want to be realistic, I want to think that everyone is always good all the time, but obviously that doesn’t happen.

What would you change about yourself?
I would be less concerned about the future and more present in everyday and every moment. I think that’s a problem most of us have. Georgetown is very pre-professional and so it’s nice to just live right now, not think about the past, not worry so much about the future. I wish I would stress less about the future and focus more on what I have now. 

What’s the biggest change you’ve consciously made in your life and why?
Coming from a very small high school to a big school, obviously people are more diverse so you just have more people to interact with. So I think I’ve become more open-minded and better able to understand other peoples’ perspectives on things and understand where people are coming from or why they’re upset and why they’re frustrated. Just understanding that there’s more happening with people than what it immediately appears at the surface. 

Do you feel obliged to be busy at Georgetown?
Oh yeah. I feel like a massive slacker if I’m not working at some point during the day. Oh yeah, I’m always busy. I think it’s partly me feeling like I always have to take advantage of things I have and keep working and keep doing things. And Georgetown is very much a place where people try to be busy all the time or get involved in a lot of things. And I don’t think it’s bad, per se, but it can detract from living now, instead of stressing about the future.  

What are your plans after Georgetown? 
I just want to do things and live a life that will make me happy in that moment, in the sense that I enjoy what I’m doing because I’m able to make a difference for other people. I’m a government major and this summer I’m working in New York in finance, which is kind of the opposite of what I wanted to, which makes no sense. But I don’t know; I think that you are given opportunities for a reason. I’m just kind of OK with accepting what life throws at me, but I like to give back, which is why I’m majoring in government because I want to give back to this wonderful nation. I’m not really stuck on anything. I would like to be in national security as I’m sure most people are. But we’ll see; I’m pretty open.

What do you hope Georgetown will help you accomplish? 
Well I think I came to Georgetown because of those Jesuit values of caring for the whole person. And when I came to visit I feel like I met a lot of people that were real well-rounded. So what I’ve wanted to do since I’ve been here is grow the different parts of me. And I felt Georgetown would allow me the opportunity to do that and I think it has. 

What are you passionate about?
I think I’m most passionate about learning in every single sense. I’ve taken a lot of really random classes that don’t contribute to my major or my minor. I’m in accounting now; I’m taking computer science, I took architecture when I was abroad; I took an art class. I want to be able to say that I’ve tried to learn as much as I can because I think that’s a part of being a well-rounded person and I think that’s a big part of Georgetown, taking liberal arts classes to just broaden your academic horizons. And then meeting new people, you learn about their situations and their backgrounds and that helps you grow as a person and spiritually learn about yourself. I just want to be able to learn and not leave the world knowing that I didn’t try to understand it, if that makes sense. That was absurdly abstract. I also love whiskey, but I don’t know if that’s appropriate for The Hoya. 

Interview by Hanaa Khadraoui