Mahe Ali

COL ’15
Age: 20
Hometown: Orlando, Fla.
Major: Government

What’s the most common question you get as a tour guide?
Someone always asks your most favorite or least favorite thing about Georgetown — I always say something silly — something about green space.

What do you find most frustrating about Georgetown?
There’s always going to be a noticeable disconnect between what students want and what administrators can provide.

What do you hope Georgetown will help you accomplish?
The career angle would be the first one. But it’s not just about what you end up doing afterwards, but the people you meet and friendships you maintain. By being here I was able to make a certain number of good friends that I hope will be maintained.

Do you feel you fit in at Georgetown?
I do. I think I’ve been lucky that I’ve never felt very alienated here or come into it feeling weird about anything.

Where are you from? Compare and contrast it to Georgetown. Where are you more comfortable?
It’s very different; Orlando is a much smaller city. You drive everywhere; you don’t really have the cool cultural side of D.C. at all. It’s very touristy. My parents also live in Africa so I had a large shift from that. They moved to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over the summer so I’ve seen the differences between all three.

What’s your greatest fear?
I have three: I’m terrified of lizards, I can’t have knives pointing in my direction and, far more seriously, rejection is a large fear of mine.

What’s the biggest change you’ve consciously made in your life and why?
In the last year or so I’ve had to actively work at being an emotional person — someone willing to address those kinds of things. It’s an active effort that I’ve had to make more recently than anything else.

If you could lead a protest on one thing, what would it be?
There are so many things. A social justice issue: Since my parents live in Africa, I was there recently and saw a lot of poverty and government strife, and I have family in Kenya and Ethiopia; I see a lot of things that we in the privileged world can’t do anything to address. Things we don’t have a lot of exposure to. It’s not something you can get up in arms about and protest — it’s the way the world is — but it’s good to be aware of it at least.

What’s an outstanding bucket list item you want to accomplish?
It’s certainly not clock hands. Worst idea in the history of the world.

Interview by Braden McDonald