Melissa Riggio

COL ’14
Hometown: Indianapolis, Ind.
Majors: French and German
Minor: Women’s and Gender Studies.

Why do you live in Arlington?
Well. One time in Paris I met a guy on study abroad — he’s French — and a year and a half later he moved to the States to live with me and you can’t live with someone on campus so I moved off. It’s one of those romantic study abroad, met-in-France things. It sounds so cliché when I say it.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Moving to Berlin was tough for me, not because I had never done it before — I did the Paris thing — but I was starting not-academically. I was being thrown into a 9 to 5 work environment, I had some personal things going on and I didn’t know anyone in Berlin. I barely knew my landlady and my boyfriend was in Paris so I had to go out and be like, “Hey, I’m a foreigner, please love me,” or otherwise you don’t get to meet people. And there weren’t any students because I wasn’t involved in academia yet — I started the internship in the offseason so that was hard. I didn’t have a roommate at the time, so I had a giant apartment all to myself, I was in a new country, I was lonely and it was also very cold. It was January in Berlin. So that was tough, but obviously I’m still here and I learned a lot about myself. You learn a lot about yourself when you do a two-hour commute every day and you’re in a country you don’t know and you don’t have any friends.

What kinds of things are you involved in here at Georgetown?
Well I did the freshman madness thing and I was like in 20 clubs but it mostly narrowed down. I work in the library at Gelardin and that took up a lot of my time, medieval club, French club, German club, fencing club for a little bit — that was fun. But my main thing to do with friends was play Dungeons and Dragons with friends in the ICC — which is open all night by the way. We stayed in there until 2 a.m. a lot and those are my fondest memories — playing hide and seek in the ICC at 2 a.m. after D&D.

Do you feel like you fit in at Georgetown?
I don’t think that I — if you lined up everyone’s resumes — would really fit in well because I worked so much to pay my own tuition. I pay my own tuition; my parents don’t. I didn’t fit in financially at first. I’d see kids blow $1,000 a weekend on booze and I’d be like, “OK I’m going go work 20 hours a week.” So that was weird at first but once I found my little niche with my Dungeons and Dragons group and work at the library and people are super great I didn’t need those other groups. I know they exist; I just don’t really need to interact with them. They’re great but they’re not for me.

If you could change something about yourself what would it be? What is the biggest change you have consciously made in your life and why did you make that change?
I like who I am right now. In high school I didn’t really know where I was going, but I think if high school me saw me now, she would be good. I think I made a conscious change to stand up for myself at some point, which is hard, especially for girls, to do. I remember in high school I would be very quiet if someone was being rude or mean or derogatory and I think it was around freshman or sophomore year I just decided I was done. I remember talking back to someone who was saying things about me. Whereas before I would have been like, “Oh I guess it’s OK. I don’t think they’ll do it again.”

You said you’ve been working to pay your own tuition. How has it been maintaining a balance between working and school and social life?
I admit I made a conscious decision early on that if I had to drop anything it would be social, so I never got the party hard, drunk stumbling around at 2 a.m. on M Street thing because I was always working Saturday mornings. Sundays was homework. I think for 3 years at Georgetown I worked 20 hours a week — which is the most you’re allowed to do — and on top of that I did odd jobs like dog walking or note taking for the ARC. I know I made a choice not the do the big social life thing, and I don’t regret it, but I know it’s something I’ll never be able to get back. You won’t get your undergraduate experience back, but I don’t regret it.

What’s your favorite class you’ve taken at Georgetown?
This semester has a bunch of good ones. I’m taking “Pleasure in the 18th Century,” which is my French class and it’s really funny because we all know we’re talking about super great things but it’s in French so we’re trying to find the right words. My gender studies classes have been really eye opening, and the German department classes offer such a unique perspective on literature. I’m taking a class on evil taught by a Jesuit, which I highly recommend because they just look at things differently — it’s about the persistence of evil and the class starts out with the idea that every book will have evil, and you’ll either see how they lost to the evil or overcame the evil, but no matter what, the evil is there and it’s pretty heavy stuff for Monday at 2 p.m. 

If you could change anything about Georgetown what would it be?
If there was one thing I could change about Georgetown it would be the food plan. I couldn’t afford it at all. It was just too expensive. $10 a meal is ridiculous and I even wrote a letter the summer before my sophomore year begging them to take me off the meal plan. I can cook for myself for less than a dollar a meal, and you’re making me pay $10 a meal, and they said unless it’s religious, you can’t change it. I actually went into debt so Georgetown could have more money. It was a dark moment between me and Georgetown. It was more frustrating and I wish Georgetown would change it at least for students on financial aid if not for everyone. Other than that, Georgetown’s great! I just have that one complaint.

What’s your favorite part about Georgetown?
The opportunities. They will throw money at people, they will throw research at people, they just want you to do things. I did the internship through the German department, the French department gave me a scholarship to help me go to Paris, the Corp has thrown a bunch of money at me for creative scholarships — even when I was abroad. Georgetown really wants you to do things and that’s super great and I wish people would take more advantage of what’s out there. There’s ways to do what you want, you just have to ask the right people. 

Interview by Nicole Jarvis