Edwin Lopez

SFS ’16
Age: 19
Hometown: El Paso, Texas
Major: Regional and Comparative Studies (Latin America and Eastern Europe

Do you feel obligated to be busy at Georgetown?
Definitely. It’s actually a conversation I’ve had with many people many times, but at the same time I feel happy to be busy. I feel like if I’m not being busy I’m not doing enough with my life, and there’s definitely a time I need to just sit down, relax, play racquetball, watch TV. But I do not complain, and I love every single moment of it.

Do you compare yourself to others regarding how busy you are?
I think I compare myself in order to reassure myself that it’s OK to be this busy. So if I look at someone else who’s equally as busy as I am, I think I am not going absolutely crazy. With that said, I often do compare myself. When I want to settle down a little more I compare myself to other schools and my friends at other schools, and I think about how that will relax me a little more, and I take time off for myself.

What do you do at Georgetown?
I have several classes. I’m taking a 16-credit lifestyle with a pass/fail class. I am outgoing director of communications for a couple of organizations. I work at the Center for Latin American Studies. I am incoming chief of staff for the International Relations Club, and I’m trying to found an international affairs newspaper called The Caravel.

Can you explain a little bit of the idea behind your paper?
This idea came about probably last summer. A group of a few friends and I started to think about the necessity for there to be not only more student-writing about international affairs, but just simply more reporting about what happens in several regions. We find that mainstream media often focuses on certain conflicts, like the Ukraine or even Venezuela, often ignoring a lot of the other facts and important stories that are going on across the world. So what we are trying to do with this newspaper is bring these stories out, promote the vision to the entire Georgetown community, while trying to create more regional experts here in Georgetown and give Georgetown a source, a one-stop shop for all of international affairs.

Do you feel that you fit in at Georgetown?
Definitely. I do feel like I belong here at Georgetown. My friends are very intellectual, very capable and very fun, for the most part. So I definitely do fit in here.

What’s your favorite class that you’ve taken at Georgetown?
I would go with my Latin American history class. Just because it’s intellectually intriguing; it’s what I want to do. But my boss is also my professor, so that adds a little extra dynamic in there, which is fun.

What are your plans after Georgetown?
I have no idea, to be absolutely honest. I’d like to go back home and work in city management whenever I can, but to be honest it’s just see where the wind takes me and see what I can do.

Does that question annoy you?
It does remind me that I don’t know exactly what I want to do. But knowing that I don’t know doesn’t bother me at all. Just because leading myself down one path would restrict me in my possibilities, and I want to be able to do what I want at any given point.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Waking up every morning is pretty difficult. I feel like that sums it up pretty well.

Which television or movie character do you see yourself most in or why?
That’s difficult because I don’t watch too much television, but if I were to choose from a movie character … I used to have a dog, and I named my dog after a movie character that is actually a cat in the old movie “Oliver & Company,” and I do envision myself as being a type of Oliver, a cat who lives among dogs, or vice versa.

Interview by Rob DePaolo