Samantha Rhodes

COL ’16
Age: 19
Hometown: San Francisco, Calif.
Major: English
Minors: Studio Art and History

Where are you from? Can you compare and contrast it to Georgetown and tell me where you feel most comfortable?
My high school, which is basically like my entire home, was very similar to Georgetown. It was a rigorous school and it was small, so you knew everything about everyone and it’s the same here. So I feel very comfortable here and there — it doesn’t matter, even though it’s so far away.

What do you do?
Ooh, that’s a big question. I write constantly, I write for three magazines. I play sports pretty much every day. I do a lot of art. I do film production, photography and acrylic on campus. 

Do you feel obliged, at all, to be busy at Georgetown?
I love being busy, but yes, you feel out of place if you’re not busy here.

What do you find most frustrating about Georgetown?
Some people can be a little fake. And some people are very judgmental. That’s rather frustrating.

What do you hope Georgetown will help you accomplish?
I hope to get a lot of background in journalism and in art, even though it’s not a school for either of those things, because I know the professors for both my majors and minors and they’re amazing, so I hope to get a lot of lasting relationships out of that. 

If you are interested in journalism and art, then why Georgetown?
I came in as a neurobiology pre-med student, so I did not choose the school for that. And I was a recruited rower, so I didn’t choose it for art or journalism.

Why the switch?
I started working at the children’s organ transplant center and I got too attached to my patients, so I realized I could not become a doctor, and I’ve written my entire life, so journalism was a natural fit. 

What’s your greatest fear?
Shots. I got cortisone injections for my back and they were horrible.

What do you do for “me” time?
A lot of photography and art. Art is sort of like my “me” time. And write poetry. 

What would you change about yourself? What’s the biggest change you’ve consciously made in your life?
I would definitely want to value myself more and not take shit from other people, because I’ve taken a lot of shit from a lot of people my entire life, and I’ve definitely made a change in the last couple years in college to not do that. If girls are openly catty or mean, I used to sit back and just take it, even as a bystander or to myself, and now I will just fight back.

Interviewed by Mallika Sen.