Joy Jackson

SFS ’17
Age: 19
Hometown: Marietta, Ga.
Major: STIA
Certificate: International Development

What do you do at Georgetown?
I am a co-president of the community garden. I work in the SFS Deans’ office. Technically, I’m a member of the triathlon team, but I do all my workouts by myself, so I guess I’m not with the team, but I pay dues. And I watch lots of Netflix and study sometimes.

Do you feel obliged to be busy at Georgetown?
Sometimes, because everyone here is very proactive — not everyone, but there are some very aggressive people out there, and they’re always doing things like booking their schedules for weeks at a time where they barely have any time to sleep, and you hear about it, because everyone talks about everything they do, and you think, “Wow I must not be doing enough, I need some more stuff to do.” And then you realize you also have to go to school, and then that’s where the complications come in because school is not very fun. It can be very fun if you’re not busy, but everyone’s busy.

What do you like most about Georgetown?
Probably where it’s located. For me when I was picking colleges I didn’t want to go too far from home — this might have been the farthest college — the college that was the farthest that I applied to. Even though my parents were wanting me to apply to colleges on the West Coast, I just didn’t want to go over there, because I don’t have family there so all my family’s on the East Coast. So definitely the location, but I also like the SFS curriculum just because you get a really, really, really solid background in a bunch of things but I think, since a majority of people do the core curriculum in their first and second years, it’s really helpful in deciding what you want to do within the SFS, and it’s just like, fun. There’s always lots of cool speakers here, and working in the Deans’ Office, there’s always cool people in and out of there, so it’s a good atmosphere to be in. Definitely for politics, everyone here knows about politics, and is engaged in some movement or issue or something like that.

What’s your favorite class you’ve taken at Georgetown?
I have two. So probably going to major in STIA – Environment and Energy, so obviously whenever I can take courses related to that, I enjoy them a lot more than the general core curriculum. For my proseminar, I had “Green Politics,” with Professor Krupar – she’s like the coolest person I’ve ever met. I learned a lot not just about environmental issues but sort of the philosophical underpinnings of a lot of environmental issues, and there’s like different schools of thought that govern how we view environmental issues, which was really cool to see, because I never thought about that before. Also, “Climate and Humanity,” with Professor McNeill and Professor Beach, because they’re just like the best combination. If I could have picked any two professors to put in a classroom together, it would have been those two, because you get a lot of the rational science stuff with Professor Beach, and then you have McNeill there, giving the humanities point of view, and also just saying some really funny things. He’s the best.

Where are you from? How is it different from Georgetown? Where are you more comfortable?
I’m from a very conservative part of Georgia. I think it was at one point the second most conservative county in the U.S. behind Orange County. Newt Gingrich lives in my hometown, it’s very conservative, which obviously differs from here, just being on a college campus is a little bit more liberal than – especially where I’m from. In demographics, where I’m from, it’s not very diverse at all, very homogeneous. Here, it’s a little bit more diverse in that you’re exposed to a lot of different cultures with the international students, so back at home, I knew very few people that weren’t from the U.S., but here, you have people on our floor, we have two people from India on our floor, a girl from Australia, so you like get that cultural exposure. I grew up in the suburbs, too — Whole Foods, soccer moms, the whole deal, you just go to Whole Foods for fun, because you’re in the suburbs, that’s what you do. But here, there’s a lot more, it’s a more vibrant community. 

What television character do you see the most in yourself and why?
Okay this is going to sound really bad, but “Dexter.” I’m not a serial killer or anything, but the show has a lot of internal dialogues and that’s just sort of how I think through things, I just have to see things objectively, and I guess the point of the show is like, Dexter has no emotional connections whatsoever. I have emotions, don’t worry, but I like to get objective point of view on everything, and I like to analyze, and when you’re watching “Dexter,” you’re sort of seeing how his mind works. But I’m not a serial killer, I’m just going to stress that.

Community garden – talk about it.
So I started working in the community garden when I got here in September, and I know Whitney was the main person that I worked with in it, and she’s graduating this year, and Gabe, the other person who used to be in charge of it, and I think they’ve been in charge of it since their sophomore years, but they’re graduating this year so they wanted to — they pretty much had to hand it over. Me and Michelle were two of the people to respond to the leadership position. I have a garden at home, in my backyard. It’s something that I picked in maybe sophomore year, because I got bored, so I started doing gardening, and I would landscape our house, and my parents were pretty excited because they didn’t have to pay people to landscape anymore. When I got here, I knew that I wouldn’t have as much green space, and that was also a big adjustment. And so I wanted to make sure that I could have a place where I could go and relax and not have to worry about school, and I think gardening is like the best outlet for that.

Interview by Kshithij Shrinath