Lucas Wimmer

SFS ’16
Age: 19
Hometown: Seattle, Wash.
Major: International Economics

Where are you from? 
I’m from Seattle. Seattle is a great city. It’s very liberal, progressive, alternative lifestyles are definitely promoted there so I got to see that, but the suburbs are a little different, they’re a little more family-oriented and people are more sort of established. 

Compare and contrast Seattle and Georgetown. 
It’s definitely very different. When I first came here, I don’t think I even realized the layers of difference that go on here, in terms of just how people interact. In Seattle, everyone sort of stares at each other and here I feel like if you make contact with someone they’ll just be like, “Oh, why are you starting at me.” So it’s much more private here and people dress more conservatively. I’m in a button down right now, but people in Seattle would probably look at me funny for wearing a button down. I didn’t know what Brooks Brothers was before coming here.

What do you do?
I’m involved in a lot of stuff on campus, perhaps too much. I am involved in a lot of finance-related activities on campus. I’m a portfolio manager for GUSIF; I’m involved in GPS, another investment fund. I work at the school’s investment office, so I get to work with the different hedge funds that sort of comprise our endowment and I’m also in AKPsi, the business fraternity.

What do you do for “me time?”
I don’t have a lot of me time, but I feel like most kids at this school don’t. I love sports. In high school I played baseball, football, too, for a little bit. I love to follow Seattle sports teams; when the Seahawks got to go to the Super Bowl this year that was really great. And just hanging out with my friends. The reason why I cam to Georgetown was because of the people. I visited a lot of other schools but upon visiting Georgetown, I was just like, “This is the spot for me.” 

Which fictional character or real person do you see yourself most in and why?
I think in my professional life I’d like to be like Steve Jobs because even though in his personal life, he had a lot of issues, he was really someone who wanted to change the status quo and he was willing to do whatever it took to have the greatest product possible and I think that’s really cool — when someone is just so dedicated to something that they just do it better than anyone else. 

Do you feel obligated to be busy at Georgetown?
There’s definitely pressure to succeed. You’re in Georgetown and you now have so many opportunities, I mean that’s why you pay so much money to come here, right? And of course you do feel obligated to be busy, but you want to be busy in the right kind of way, you want to be busy because this is the foundation that is leading to your goals. You don’t want to be busy just to be busy. 

What are your plans after Georgetown? 
This summer I’m working at the State Department in their Office of Investment Affairs, so it’ll involve investing, one of my passions, and diplomacy, which is sort of SFS-related stuff. I think I want to go up to New York and work in finance for a bit, but I think in the long term, I’d like to work in San Francisco because I’m from the West Coast and I’d like to return there. 

Do you feel you fit in at Georgetown?
I think it’s hard not fit in at Georgetown if you’re just a passionate person that is interested in any of the fields here. I guess if you were a hardcore engineering person then maybe Georgetown wouldn’t be the best school for you mainly because Georgetown doesn’t have an engineering program but I’m interested in so many of the things that other Georgetown kids are interested in that I think it’s hard not to find someone who has the same passions as you.

What’s your favorite class you’ve taken at Georgetown? 
Arabic. It just consumes all of your time and there’s always more you can learn. There’s always more words you can learn; you can always listen to Al Jazeera more. And that’s a really good thing and it’s really good when you have teachers that motivate you to do that because you just end up learning so much more than you would have. 

If you could lead a protest on one thing, what would it be?
Income inequality in the United States. I’m a big capitalist but I’m a capitalist because I think we shouldn’t have an elite class that controls all the money. I think people should have incentives and be compensated for those incentives and you shouldn’t be stuck in this place where you know you work hard but you just don’t have as many opportunities because we have this closed-off, classist society.  

Interview by Hanaa Khadraoui