Paul Wrenn

COL ’16
Age: 20
Hometown: Jacksonville, Fla.
Major: English
Minor: Spanish

Can you tell me a little bit about where you’re from and compare and contrast it to Georgetown? Where do you feel more comfortable?
Home’s a lot different than Georgetown, definitely. As far as getting around, things are far apart — you’re driving everywhere — whereas, at Georgetown, things are close together — you can walk. There’s a lot more to do in Georgetown; things certainly stay open a lot later. If you want to get a bite to eat at midnight, you can do that. I guess it’s a lot different being in college, too, because everything tends to be later, with student schedules and stuff like that. I feel really comfortable in both places. There are definitely times I feel more comfortable at home. I don’t get to drive very much when I’m here, and I like to drive. One of my favorite things to do at home is go and pick up groceries, because I get to drive. People at Georgetown are a little different from people at home; I think it’s kind of a regional thing. I think people in the South are generally just friendly, more overtly out there, more interested in speaking to people, in having conversations. Generally, people at Georgetown can be a little more cold, more quiet, more contemplative, too; they generally think a lot more before they speak than people back home. 

Do you feel obliged to be busy at Georgetown?
Yeah, I do. Sometimes I’ll get back from practice in the morning and I’ll be like, I can’t take a nap, I have to work. Even when I don’t really have stuff to work on, I feel like I should be working. I think it’s because people are always so busy here, and it’s just kind of a group mentality — I don’t know really where it starts, but everyone feels the need to be working a lot, studying a lot, occupied with things. 

What do you find most frustrating about Georgetown?
I think it’s the lack of student facilities. I think there’s a lack of student activities center — there’s no campus heart where everyone meets and can be together, and it’s like, I kind of want to study, but I kind of want to be around people. I kind of want to go somewhere where I can study, but I might run into this girl I like, or something like that, something like that type of thing. I think it’s missing a central place for students to be around one another.

What do you like most about this place?
I would probably say I like most just the people you meet. As much as what I said about people up here being different than down South, there are really some fantastic people that you meet, professors who are just involved in such big deal type of stuff, working at the White House or Brookings Institution. Even the students here, a lot of them are incredible people who really have accomplished a lot by the age of 19 or 20. It’s a lot of pressure to be around that, and I guess that feeds into the pressure to feel busy. 

What do you hope Georgetown will help you accomplish? Why did you come here?
I came here to row and be at a good school. I’ve really built up a lot of toughness, a lot of intellectual and spiritual courage, a lot of willingness to do things that I don’t want to do but I know are important. Waking up early and going to a hard practice and having work to do and having a full day of classes and then more stuff in the afternoon, I’m becoming someone with a lot thicker skin and a lot more courage about things and a willingness to get things done. A lot more ideals, too — whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing — about how things should be, life should work. It’s like I came here and I was like: ”Wow, I want people to be more open, more out there. Maybe I can figure out a way to bring these contemplative people out of their shells and talk.”

Do you think that after graduation, you’d donate to Georgetown?
It depends. The school’s been kind of bad with funding my sport and just in general has been bad about funding things I’d like to see on campus. I would donate to the rowing program, but I’m not sure I would donate to the school.

Do you feel you fit in here?
Yeah, in my own way. I kind of have a smaller group of friends, and there’s a lot of groups here that I really would not want to associate with and there’s a lot of people here I would not want to associate with. I think there’s a lot of people who really just do not want to give you the time of the day. They don’t want to be friendly, beholden to anyone or anything, have authentic relationships with people. That’s a thing that really irritates me: when people don’t want to cross bridges and make friends. I think there’s a lot of that here, and I wish there wasn’t a lot of that here. I fit in really well with the guys on the rowing team, just because I spend so much time with them. If I wasn’t rowing here, I think it would be hard to find a niche. I don’t know if that’s more me than the people here, but I think there are plenty of nice people here — you just have to kind of find them. It was helpful living on a floor when I was a freshman where a lot of people were together all the time. It was frustrating in its own way, but at the same time, I’m living with one of them, and we’re not best friends, but we get along fine. If you’re not really extroverted, it’s tough.

What’s your greatest fear?
Being not as good as everyone else. Being behind the ball. Ending up in a situation where everyone else is so far ahead of you in something you really care about, and you can’t catch up. After giving so much of yourself and doing your best and being so far behind everyone else, that’s got to be the worst feeling.

Because you have a lot of time dedicated to rowing and classes, what do you do for “me” time?
I read a lot. Some of my “me” time is spent doing the extra workouts we have to do. You get pretty good at communing with yourself when you’re running around Georgetown. I like my mornings, too. I wish I had more mornings when I could wake up and drink my coffee and read.

Interview by Mallika Sen