Financial Aid Information!

More from Hui Min Cao:

Personal Finances @ Gtown!

Hopefully most of you have managed your own money at some post during high school. For

those of you who have not, one of the most important aspects of being independent in college is

managing your own funds. Here is some information pertaining to financial aid resources and

financial literacy.

Financial Aid:

The financial aid office is in the basement of Healy. If you have specific questions about your

financial aid package or how to get financial aid in general, you can always go there. If you

have a general question about the financial aid process like how to apply for loans or fill out

a FAFSA, Peer Counselors at the front desk can answer those questions. These students are

nationally certified to help you with this kind of information. For questions, specific to your

individual financial aid package, it is best to talk to your financial aid counselor. They have

access to your specific information can tell you how much “wiggle room” you have in your

aid. Some students may be able to increase their work-study award or apply for more aid to

cover Georgetown University Health Insurance or Alternative Spring Break trips. Though upper

classmen can tell you their experiences in getting more financial aid, keep in mind that it might

not apply to you depending on your specific situation.

GU Peer Counseling: For those of you who are interested in

the financial aid process and would like to learn more about it

while helping others, apply to be a GU Peer Counselor, by

emailing gupeercounseling@gmail.com.

Peer Counselors support and guide Georgetown University’s

newly-admitted and continuing student population by

assisting them with their financial aid goals, from applying for

aid to understanding their financial aid package, through one-on-one counseling, information

sessions, and in-dorm assistance. It has lower hourly commitments than most other clubs on

campus (1 hour per week) and being nationally certified looks impressive on your resume. It is

also a great way of finding out information relevant to your future financial problems like

financial aid for graduate school, etc.

Personal Finances in College: Common $ense (www.gucommonsense.com)

Georgetown provides free financial literacy workshopsthrough Common $ense. These sessions

cover basic financial literacy details like budgeting, credits, taxes, etc. and are also a great way

to get free food, interact with students, meet interesting business professors, and get awesome

prizes. (I know that they are giving away free Nationals Baseball Tickets at the first session and

having Ledo’s pizza. Not to mention that the business professor who’s presenting is known as

the money guy to some because he throws money into the audience for participating!)

If you have any immediate questions, log on to their website (www.gucommonsense.com) and

learn more. Presentations from previous years are still on the website and there are additional

resources such as interactive online Buttonwood modules and

financial literacy games. Don’t forget to register ASAP for the

first workshop on Wednesday, September 14th at 6:15pm in

McShain Lounge!

(If you ever see $100 bills in red square handing out flyers and

candy, you’ll know a financial literacy meeting is coming

soon…No seriously, those of us to help out with the workshops

have to wear geeky money suits to advertise!)

Here is some general information I found useful Freshmen year.

If you have any outside scholarships it will reduce a

combination of your personal contribution, your loans, and your work-study money. Once all

these resources are depleted, your Georgetown scholarship money will be decreased. Note that

scholarship money will not go toward your parent contribution.

If your financial situation changed dramatically since finishing your FAFSA and CSS file,

contact your counselor. You have to fill out additional forms but there is a chance that they will

over you more financial aid money.

Once tax season rolls around, remember that for the lucky ones who receive more financial aid

money than tuition cost, scholarships are taxable.

For those who are ambitious and plan on getting two jobs with the university, only one of

those jobs can be work study. The other must hire non work-study students. Your work study

department is your primary department and your other job must send weekly override forms to

the first so that you can get paid.

If you have any specific questions and would like to talk to another student, please feel free to

contact me. My net id is hmc42.

Updates to Work Study Post

Additional Info and Tips from Hui Min Cao:

Students must bring their the original social security card, passport, or birth certificate with them to college. Georgetown require the original copy in order to hire students.

It is best to get direst deposit for work so it's best to bring a check or open a new bank account.

There is no required maximum hour they can work but the university suggest a maximum of 20. You are pretty much restricted to 40 hours because most departments do not want to pay you more.

You are expected to fill out basic tax and exemption forms when hired, so be familiar with these or let your parents know.

Know which jobs are work study and which are not.

Know your limit. If you think you need to take the first semester off and adjust do so!

Best Study Spots

I know most of you wont be worrying about this until later in the year, but I'm going to go ahead and put this up for y'all so that when you need it (during finals when people start sleeping on their cubicles in Lau to reserve them), it's here.

ON CAMPUS

These locations are quick, close, common. You'll get used to working in almost all of them. Trust me. There are also a number of places not on this list, in addition to your own dorm room. Don't let this list be definitive, and explore for new locations.

Dahlgren Medical Library: The medical library is a perfect place for perfect silence (except for the forlorn cries of some poor orgo students cutting their wrists and writing suicide pacts in some of the back corners). This location is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. So if silence is bliss for you, here's your new haunt.

MSB Breakout Rooms: These rooms are teh shit. Just sayin. A nice long table with plugins, your own whiteboard with markers, nice rolly chairs, a TV...and even tech rooms with more useful gadgets and gizmos. You want to get an MSB breakout room. The only problem is, so does the rest of the world. So when that day comes where you HAVE to get a project done, you can't have any distractions, and you wan somewhere to go...wake up really freaking early and find yourself an MSB room. Located on every floor but the entry floor in the MSB, all along the sides, you can't miss 'em. And I couldn't get my photo to upload, so you get this kitty.

ICC Classrooms: A good standard place to find your own home. Somewhat depressing, since you have class in them. All chalk boards, and they turn off the heat at some point in the night...but quiet and spacious.

St. Mary's: The hideout of math majors, CS majors, and nursing students. A number of large quiet cubicles are sometimes available in the third floor math center, along with computer labs on the first and third floors. The third floor has entrance hour restrictions, however. Also home of math tutoring services (free), and when you can get a classroom to work in, they all have whiteboards.

Theological Center: Another location for those in need of silence, the basement of Lau is a good place to be. Cool, quiet, and filled with (moving!) shelves of foreign language theology books, it's a nice place to study. And no, there are not kitties. I just couldn't find any photos for this one, sorry.

New North Basement: A good place to be alone (when the band isn't practicing!). New North's basement has a number of pianos and whiteboards, along with band lockers. And in the earlier parts of the day, when the band isn't around, it's a great place for brainstorming. On the negative, no where near liquid goodness.

MUG/UG/CommonGrounds: If you need a little musical background noise, constant comments, and access to warm goodness, these coffee locations are the place to be. While I tend to stay near these locations instead of in them, many people seem to thrive in the comfy couched atmosphere. Just don't let yourself get *too* distracted.

Okay. I'm tired of kitties. Deal.

Starbucks: Actually, a pretty quiet spot, with even quieter tables outside of the cafe. Located in the Leavey Center. Advantages include drinks and comfy seats; disadvantages are a lack of whiteboards, some noise, a low number of plugins, and closed hours.

Lau floors, as explained by the kind of people on them:

• Basement: Theological center. I demand silence and being alone. Serious students.
• First: Computer Lab. I need a fancy device for my fancy project. Art students.
• Second: Talking floor. I need to talk and feel solidarity with my similarly screwed Hoyas/get absolutely nothing done. Or I just want quick access to coffee and can handle the constant noise of Lau2. Some studiers, a lot of Joe and Jane Hoyas.
• Three: computers, pierce *silent* reading room, a few hard to get tables. "I got a table! I got a table!" "SHUT UP." Serious students.
• Four: some cubicles, some tables, quiet nooks. Quiet, but not too quiet. Serious students; Joe and Janes who realized they really are screwed if they don't do something.
• Five: some tables, some cubicles. Refuge of the silent. If you speak again, I will kill you with this pen. Dangerously screwed students and OCD style quiet people.

Leos: Best place to study, hands down. Noisy during regular meal times, otherwise quiet. "Free" food/drinks (coffee, for those of you who need it). See my post on eating at leos for more leos studying tips.

Carbarn Floor Two: I haven't been here. But I'm told it's a good place to go. Check it out.

Epicurean: Good place for group discussions, where you can talk, use a table, write, eat, and not have to yell to be heard or annoy anyone else. Advantages include nice tables, a good talking atmosphere, and food. Disadvantages include the long walk, difficulty in getting a good window table, and the cost.

Front Lawn / Leavey Esplanade: If you have to go outside, then sit and read in the sun! When the front lawn gets too busy, the Leavey esplanade (grass and trees on the roof!) is a good place to study and enjoy the sunshine.

Yates: Yates can be a good place to study and work out at the same time. Biking or even running while reading is possible, and I've always found recording language vocab on my ipod, and playing it in between tracks, is the way to study at yates.

OFF CAMPUS

There's something about going off campus that helps me focus. Maybe it's getting away from the other hoyas freaking out over finals, maybe it's the peace of cafes, or maybe it's just because it's a unique experience from Lau, but I like going out into the world to study. Be adventurous, try new locations not on this list. But here's some to get you started:

Georgetown Public Library: Quiet study rooms you can sign up for, books that real people read, nice tables, air conditioning, plug ins, access to a number of restaurants to eat in. Disadvantages include occasional noisy kids and limited space.

National Portrait Gallery Courtyard:

Saxby's/Barnes & Noble: Good off campus coffee haunts. Pretty standard. Disadvantages include no plugins at B&N and some people have trouble with the wifi at Saxbys.

Safeway Starbucks: 24 Hour starbucks. The one, the only.

Shanghai Teahouse/Shanghai Lounge/ Harmony: Chinese food restaurants that don't mind you hanging around. Good place to catch up on a little reading while enjoying bubble tea (ST/SL only). The tables are bigger and the food is cheaper at Harmony, which is also closer to GU. But the food is more authentic at the too farther-off locations.

Marvelous Market: Free wifi, I hear. On Wisconsin.

On-Campus Jobs

Today's topic, by email request: Workstudy Jobs on campus.

Reader email:

Hey! I'm going to be in the SFS next year and found your blog really helpful, especially the stuff about job-searching on campus. how soon would you recommend looking for a job on campus; like, within a week of orientation?

The short answer? I'd start now.

For this post, I'm going to back up a bit though, so everyone can get caught up to speed on what a work study job is.

A work study is basically an award from the federal government, in which the government agrees to reimburse / pay a portion of a student's wages as a part of their financial aid plan. As a result, a work study essentially results in saying that the federal government will pay wages for that student's work through the amount given. Here are a few things that are not necessarily clear on paper:

1. You are not guaranteed, given, or assigned a position. It is up to you to find a position which qualifies, obtain said position, and work to that amount.

2. You are not guaranteed the amount listed. It simply means that your employer will be paid by the federal government up to that amount listed if you work enough time for that amount, but no more. As a result, some jobs may allow you to work *only* to that amount.

What's also not clear is how a student is supposed to go about finding a work-study job. Here's the hints and tips I have for you:

Hoyaworks

This link will get you to the Georgetown Student Employment portal. Because it's during the summer, many jobs which will become available may not yet be posted. However, I'll warn you ahead of time that many of the jobs listed will seem silly (comic book research assistant? Awesome!) but you wont be qualified (no wait, seriously?), while others will just be over your head (quantum researching psycho-what?), and most will just not be up your alley (...house cleaning?...). This is why I'm going to give you a couple of other avenues to pursue.

Avenue One: Swipe guard.

It's a really easy job, in which you sit at a desk, work, and occasionally slide people's cards at the entrance to buildings. This is a very easy way to get your homework done and get paid. To apply, check out this site.

Avenue Two: Housing Ops / RHO assistant.

This is what I do. RHO assistants handle incoming packages for students, handle the keys for lock-outs (no worries, those of you in New South will become very very familiar with the term lock-out), and you do a lot of sitting. Depending on what time and what RHO you work in, you may have a somewhat busy job, or you may have nothing to do besides homework. I highly recommend this position. Your work is more regular than being a swipe guard, and you get to work with other people.

I'm not a manager, so I can't just hire you (heck, I have to see if my manager is working again for next year, so I don't have to try to find a new job...) and most of these positions get given to upperclassmen (read:RHO manager's friends)*. However, if you are interested in taking up the position, contact me, and I can send your resume / email to some managers and get you the email for the housing coordiantor. This might sound like a lot of work, but it's really not.

*note: don't kill me, I swear I slipped in by being regularly hired!

Avenue Three: CSJ.

This section was written by Hui Min Cao, who works with DCSP and the CSJ, described below:

The Center for Social Justice offers three director run (full time staff) programs which take work study students. These three tutoring/mentoring programs target various wards and demographics in the D.C. metro area. Most work study students will be paid $9:50 as their starting wage with increases in wage every few semesters.

DC Schools Project (DCSP): Tutoring/mentoring program targeted at English as Second Language learners. DCSP works in a wide range of neighborhoods and tutor people of all ages. There are several different sections in this program: one to one mentoring programs for k-12 students in their homes; after school literacy/homework help programs in elementary, middle, and high schools; and adult ESL programs for Georgetown staff and those in the DC Metro community. Programs run from Mondays through Saturdays for various sections. (Note: Since I am a coordinator for this program I will be happy to talk to students who have additional questions. My email is hmc42@georgetown.edu.)

More info

DC Reads: Tutoring/mentoring program targeted at third grade literacy in Ward Seven. The goal of DC Reads is to help their students catch up to their proper reading level and programs run in seven different elementary schools. Programs run from Mondays through Saturdays for various sections.

More

After School Kids (ASK): Mentoring program targeted at court-involved youth in the DC metro area. These kids come to campus and learn about street law at the law center.

Avenue Four: LAU. I'll update this section as soon as I find out how to get a job with the library.

Avenue Five: UIS.

The UIS student help desk helps with tech problems on campus. They have a desk in St. Mary's hall. If you have some tech skills, this might be a good bet for you. More info.

Avenue Six: The Corp. The corp is a major GU institution. I'm waiting on an article from a corp affiliate, but for the mean time, you can check out this information on Georgetown's biggest coffee-supplying student-run organization. For more info, check out what Wikipedia has to say.

Ok, so there are probably a lot of other places to work on campus, but this list rounds out the most common positions held by students, and they all represent jobs that are not shown on the hoyaworks website. Hopefully there will be a student employment workshop hosted this year as there was last year, and if I hear anything about one, I'll keep you posted.

April

Language Selection

Hello! This post is aimed primarily at SFS and COL students who are going to have to take a foreign language when they arrive at GU. The content of this post is a result of major collaboration efforts with students are each in the language programs that they describe below. If their posts have been edited, I will note where--otherwise, the commentary is entirely that of each given student. If any readers would like to be put in touch with the students who wrote for this post to ask questions, please just email/facebook/comment the post, and I'll set you up.

Overview of Georgetown Languages (my apologies for those languages not reviewed, I am attempting to find reviewers for them and will update the blog as they come in):

Chinese
Persian 
Turkish
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
Modern Greek (searching for reviewer)
Ancient Greek
Latin
French
Polish
Italian
German
Arabic
Russian
Swahili

Quechua

Portuguese

Hebrew

Spanish

Scott Garosshen:

Spanish (Advanced):

Pros- Class size (~10) means you will get practice speaking. Ratemyprofessors.com will help you navigate the sea of professors, some of whom are real gems (Hector Campos), some of whom are real gems if you let them be (Tania Gentic), and some of whom are mediocre at best. Due to the enormity of the SPAN Dpt. your experience will really be what you make of it. There are professors who are really into Lit Theory, who give only a superficial reading to a basketful of snippets (most survey classes are like this), who are really in the SFS, etc. The only commonalities I've encountered are: 1) Grading is fairly easy; 2) Syllabi are very straightforward; 3) Participation really does count. I've generally enjoyed the classes I've taken and have definitely progressed.

Cons- The SPAN Dpt. is a giant machine that succeeds in spite of itself. The course a Spanish major must chart is stupidly limited and professors are not allowed much wiggle room to teach. For this reason the non-core classes are often much more enjoyable and I've had professors in the core classes express their disappointment they can't spend more time on this or grade that more leniently. Honestly though, (as with any modern language) if you really want to learn it then spend a semester or more abroad in a Spanish-speaking country.

Russian

April Eubank:

To be honest, Russian blew my mind. The GU faculty in this department is really good (if sometimes a little crazy) and the difficulty of the language paired with the professors results in a really, really, intense first year language.

Pros: You pick it up. FAST. And since the first year is so incredibly intensive, the second year is much better and more relaxed. You'll also bond very closely with your classmates, thrown together by the impossible task that is serfdom to the Russian language. It's really an experience that I don't think you get from the other languages.

Cons: It's hard. It's fast. It takes over your life. You start understanding why Russians drink so much vodka. You lose your ability to write in English cursive, inherently switching into Russian letters. It might threaten your GPA, and it will impede on other classes unless you find you're amazing at it ('oh look, the rare and mystical Russian-learning unicorn in its natural environment!'). I say this all jokingly, but I'm actually dead serious. Sometimes the easiest way to deal with how terrible a thing is, is by laughing at it (Heinlein had it right).

Things to Consider: Russian has a lot of crazy grammar rules. For those of you who've taken Latin, it's like funny-lettered, spoken Latin with more rules about rules. If you don't want to take on the grammar, this may not be your language. The same goes for if you have other killer classes on your plate. On the other hand, it's incredibly handy (it's spoken all over Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucuses...), it helps for learning many other languages, and is in demand in intel. Career-wise, it's handy to have. It's also not too hard to speak (it lacks many of the challenging sounds found in French, Arabic, etc.). For more, see the end of my review of Farsi below. Oh, and it helps if you are actually interested in Russia. All the Russian students tend to be mildly obsessed. You'll probably get labled as a Russophile just for hanging around with your classmates.

Jon Askonas:

Pros:
Fantastic Faculty who will also get you to fall in love with all things Russian
Small Classes
Enthusiastic department with lots of support
Great funding and travel opportunities from Georgetown and the US Government
Reading Russian Literature and sounding awesome whenever you speak Russian (the language has a certain gravitas/mystique)
Relatively easy grading

Cons:
Lots of work, especially the first year
Difficult learning curve
Usually need 3 instead of 2 years to gain proficiency
First two years are always intensive

Farsi (Persian)

April Eubank:

Farsi is an amazing language. It's the dialect of Persian that is spoken in Iran, but it's also mutually intelligible with Dari and Tajik (spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan). In terms of usefulness to diplomatic or security careers, it's right up there. It's also a very fairly easy language, once you get around the writing.

The pros:

• The class itself is easy. Professor Mostowfi is the only one teaching it, and it's relatively chill. Quizzes are regular about every Friday, and the pace of the class feels more like a non-intensive language than an intensive one, which lets you set your own pace. If you want to challenge yourself, you can - but your grade wont suffer if you don't succeed at going above-and-beyond-above-and-beyond.
• The language is Indo-European, genderless, and regular in conjugations. Most of the letters are easily pronounceable (I think there are perhaps three which are a little difficult, but they dead easy next to other languages like Arabic). This means that you'll have a lot less to memorize, less of a focus on grammar, and you can start moving quickly through the language (as opposed to something like Russian, where you will spend the first year staring at charts to figure out how to say anything at all). It's easy enough that you can take off running, but harder than something like Spanish, so you still get access to a more exclusive language market.
• Not very many people take the class, so you'll get a lot of personal attention, but enough take it that you'll have new friends and conversation partners. Our group ranged from about ten to fifteen last year.
• A lot of professionals, teachers, and upper classmen take the course, so you'll get a more diverse group.
• Almost no one has previous experience speaking Farsi, so you're less likely to end up in a group with heritage speakers or people who've taken the language previously.

The cons:

• The alphabet is a bit tricky. Since Arabic has a lot of sounds that Farsi doesn't have (and Farsi has a few that Arabic doesn't have) there are a few overlapping letters (so you'll have something like four different letters that are written differently but all sound like 's'). The writing is also right to left.
• The department isn't fully developed, so you can't major or minor in the language. That's a bummer. You can apply the language to the CERES certificate program, however.
• There is only one professor, so you will have Mostowfi. I love her. But if it turns out you don't...that's not as good. I will caution you against checking her rate my professor reviews, however. She also teaches French, and I get the impression that her French classes are very, very different from her Farsi courses.

Final verdict: I've only taken Russian and Farsi at Georgetown, so I can only really compare those. I took Russian for three years. It was the hardest experience academically that I've had; I studied for it more than any other class. It stressed me out, took time away from my other courses, and, after three years, I still don't speak it well. My GPA also got heavily knocked around. Farsi, on the other hand, has been fun and easy. I've aced my classes, and I can speak better in Farsi after one year than I can speak Russian after three. In my experience, Farsi was a great choice for a language.

I think a lot if it though is about how you think. For me, the grammar and structure or Russian was just too much. Saying a sentence involves constructing it before you even get to start speaking. Farsi on the other hand, is incredibly flexible. The ezafe structure allows for words to be connected, letting the same grammatical structure function in a multitude of ways. The language is therefore more flowing and less grammar-crunching. You should probably consider how you need to think in a language before you start studying it intensively.

Swahili

Henri Minion:

I took Swahili at Georgetown, and it was an amazing experience. Georgetown teaches the language about twice as fast as comparable universities in the US, all without being intensive--just 3 credits per semester. The classes remain small enough that there is a lot of one-on-one attention, and for those students wishing to challenge themselves further, Georgetown offers a 6-week summer program in Tanzania, and through the University of South Florida, a semester-long program. Knowing Swahili, even at a minimal level, has been well-received in the job market as it is something unique, and many private companies are looking to expand their operations into Africa. While the language is only official in three-ish countries, all of whom also speak English, knowing a local African language is definitely a step up. In my opinion, Swahili is extremely logical and incorporates a lot of Arabic words that makes it fun to try to converse with friends taking Beginners Arabic (a nerdy thing to do, I get it, but it was fun anyway!). One of the biggest downsides to taking Swahili is that Georgetown currently only offers the equivalent of three semesters of it, and then it is up to the student to continue his or her Swahili education on his or her own time. Howard University can add a fourth semester, but that is as far as it goes. Chances for real usage of the language--even in restaurants--is minimal without traveling to East Africa, making use of the language artificial in classroom settings and among classmates from a small class. Overall, however, I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in Africa, as learning an African language is one of the best ways to show one's commitment to the continent.

Turkish

Erica Hanichak:

If I had any doubts walking into Turkish class my first day, they were immediately cleared by Professor Önder’s straightforward teaching methods and astounding background in Turkish culture. Prof. Önder understands that language and culture are inextricable, so she intersperses lessons on Turkish grammar with ones on Turkish society--from music to holidays to ancient forms of puppetry. She even encourages students to get involved outside of class by inviting them to events at the Turkish Embassy and by pushing for them to apply for grants/scholarships to study in Turkey. As Georgetown’s Turkish program is one of the strongest in the country, her students have a good chance of receiving them.

In terms of the classroom environment, there are pros and cons:

PROS: She helps students say whatever is it they want to say in Turkish (as long as it’s not hurtful or crude). This led to discussions about imaginary cats and zombie apocalypses that made class interesting, as well as broadened our rather peculiar collection of vocabulary. Furthermore, she provides students with a very strong base in grammar. Finally, she varies her teaching methods to keep the class engaged: writing blogs, playing vocabulary bingo, learning dances, and going through newspapers. She’s very receptive to what students say will help them learn.

CONS: First, since there is such a strong emphasis on grammar, most of the work to learn new vocabulary falls on the student. Vocabulary isn’t well tested on exams. Second, since it is a beginning class, much of the class is taught in English. While this is crucial in order to ensure students understand the material, I feel like my listening comprehension and speaking skills are somewhat underdeveloped.

Arabic

Nicholas Miller:

Arabic is great if you're looking for a challenge and if you want to become a better language learner. I find that the Arabic department has the highest expectations of its students of all the language programs. People complain about the textbook, but it does introduce a lot of very useful language-learning skills that other courses tend to overlook. The course content seems to be geared mostly towards people who are interested either in IR or literature, but many of the professors bring in outside material to help make it relevant to students with different interests (I had professor Khazaal and she was the perfect language teacher). Most of the professors are good, the TAs are especially helpful and enthusiastic, and the weekly language table meetings are extremely rewarding. Learning Arabic will also be useful if you decide to keep going with Persian, as you'll get a lot of high-level vocabulary.

Beth Cooper-Chrismon:

Pros:

* The teaching materials are pretty standardized; meaning, if you change professors from one year to another, you'll do fine :)

*All the professors are capable and helpful (and I say "all" because I have yet to talk to someone taking Arabic who has thought their professor didn't help them learn. Even my professor last year, who I absolutely loathed, I loathed because he was a jerk; I still learned an incredible amount from him.

*The TAs are competent too, and are always warm and friendly and available for advice.

*A VERY useful language -- not just because the Arab world is of much interest nowadays, but because Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world and Arabic is the language of the Qur'an.

*When you get the emphatic consonants down (assuming your ear is good enough to get a good accent), Arabic sounds very deep and sexy ;)

*You'll get to watch Al-Jazeera!

Cons:

*You really have to be self-motivated; the vast majority of the work you will have to do will be outside of class. One of my professors told us outright that we would ONLY work on conversation in class, and everything else (writing, grammar) was for outside of class. So you need to be able to ask when you need help -- otherwise, unless you're a natural at it, you might not do so well.

*You will probably have 3 hours of homework every night -- and it gets harder the longer you take it. (I usually didn't have that much (more like 2 hours), but that's because I'm a quick language learner and had a little background in the alphabet etc. already)

* You won't learn any kind of relevant Arabic until the second year of it; you'll learn Modern Standard Arabic, which no one speaks on the street. You'll only learn dialects in second year, meaning you won't be able to say anything to anyone except for the equivalent of "Greetings be uponst you, O Ye Peasant!" until a year in. Unless you have a professor who pities you and decides to teach you a little dialect right away -- and some professors do.

*you need three years for proficiency. And if you need to learn it over the summer, you only have three options that are intensive (i.e. options that will give you a year's worth of intensive arabic over 3 months -- which is what you need to not be behind): Georgetown, Middlebury, and Alexandria Egypt. Which is a pain in the butt if you wanted more summer study abroad options that would give you enough Arabic to get ahead at Georgetown.

*The course materials are very much aimed at SFS students who want to learn Egyptian dialect. This is probably because the man who wrote the textbook is a member of the Georgetown Arabic faculty; I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he wrote the textbooks with the proficiency exam in mind. For example, we learn how to say "The United Nations" before we learn how to say "Where's the bathroom?".

Hebrew

Henri Minion:

I took Hebrew at Georgetown for one semester, and it was a mixed bag. On the plus side, the professor really tries to help students learn the language, and it isn't hard to get to a basic conversational level even after one semester of non-intensive classes. On the negative side, the professor has a reputation as an easy grader, and so there are a couple of students taking Hebrew just to fill electives but without a real interest in the language itself. I found that most of the students in the class were Jewish, but we all came from different backgrounds and therefore entered Beginners Hebrew I on a broad spectrum, from those of us who knew the alphabet and some basic vocabulary to those who only could replicate sounds they remember hearing growing up. Thus, the beginning of the class was somewhat painful as the professor tried to teach to the middle ground--not much time was spent on the alphabet, but for some, it was clear they thought *too* much time was spent on it and the first several weeks felt wasted. I decided not to take it a second semester because I had been told that much of it is repetitive of the first semester, and friends who continued through confirmed that rumor. While I enjoyed my one semester of Hebrew, I think that students who choose to study it should intend on studying it for multiple semesters, at least through the Intermediate level, in order to get the most out of the experience.

French

Nicholas Miller:

I had a great experience with the French department, as did most of my classmates. The department is well-funded, and there are a lot of great cultural events at GU and around the city. But because the French program is so large, it depends a lot on the instructor. I recommend Prof. Guieu if he is still there, as well as Prof. Spielmann.

Dan Galloway

French: The French Department at GU is widely varied in quality. Some professors, such as S. Lee and JM Guieu are absolutely wonderful; however, others will have you wondering exactly why you bother even speaking the language. Cohen Scali is easily the worst professor at Georgetown. I do not even hesitate to put my name near that. She is downright mean to her students and does not care if they actually learn anythign from her course. My best advice to incoming freshmen: go into a course level lower than you place on the exam. Unless you went to high school in a francophone country, your speaking is not on a high enough level to engage or participate in post-advanced discussions and youll really just be wasting everyone's time.

Quechua

Henri Minion:

I took Quechua at Georgetown for half of a semester and then withdrew because of issues with the class. The professor, an adjunct, drives down from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, once a week to teach the class. Because it is only once a week, it is very hard to develop in the language and one missed class feels like gulfs between lessons. Our meeting times were never set--they were partially based on traffic and the professor's personal schedule--and it made it difficult to commit to the class. Further, I found the professor to be difficult to understand, and I personally did not think he successfully taught the language. The textbook, written by one of the professor's family members, is in Spanish, which isn't too big of a problem for most students, except those of us without a solid grasp of the Spanish language entering the class (or, at least not Bolivian Spanish). The language itself is difficult, with intricate pronunciations that I found hard to master. I had trouble finding a pattern in the way the language is structured, and that frustrated me a lot. I withdrew after six weeks and three classes (all of which the professor was late to) because I did not think I was learning and felt that it was a drain on my ability to focus on my other studies.

Chinese

Hui Min Cao:

The Chinese department at Georgetown is amazing. If you put in the time and effort, the teachers will have you speaking like a native in no time. However, time and effort pretty means spending your every waking minute worrying about Chinese. There's no such thing as waiting a few days to study since you have a quiz or test pretty much every day. For those who are new to the language, learning the pinyin over the summer is pretty much required if you want to keep up. Most of the students who take year one have already had some kind of background in Chinese and the teachers start on materials the first day. If you do survive the transition, there will be a lot of new opportunities for you. There are study abroad programs in Taiwan and mainland China that are really great. Chinese class is no joke but it's worth it.

Nicholas Miller:

Chinese is the language to learn these days, and there are tons of scholarships and other opportunities available for students of all levels. As for Chinese at GU, all of the professors are extremely kind, but some are a bit lax in terms of keeping classes interesting and coming up with meaningful tasks for students. The nice thing about Chinese is that there are a TON of language-learning resources available online and at the library, and there are many excellent summer programs both in the States and in Chinese-speaking countries.

Ancient Greek

Scott Garosshen:

Ancient Greek (Intro):


Pros- You will get Prof. Sens [interruption from April: Sens is AWESOME]; this means you will work your butt off and learn about four high school years of Greek in two semesters. He delves deep enough into the linguistic evolution that produced Greek that it's not just memorization and the textbook (Hansen & Quinn) is clear enough that you could probably learn it yourself in your free time (which is good, because you basically do and then class is consolidation and extension). Hansen & Quinn is the opposite of the Athkenaze method, so you'll be learning grammar robotically, not "organically." Sens is hilarious, but you'll be reading Homer before the end of the year. Grading is very fair.

Cons- Like any language at Georgetown, taking it seriously will cost you hours. A lot of people think that because it's 4 credits it's easier; it's not, and once you get behind you're going to be hard-pressed to recover. Also, if you haven't taken Latin you will lose out on a huge advantage in the similarity of the two languages, on which Sens will often spend class time. It's definitely doable without knowing Latin, perhaps even as a first foreign language, but you're not going to have a social life in the latter case. Lastly, you're going to have post-bacs in your class, which can be intimidating. (They don't bite, though)

Italian

Dan Galloway:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Italian department. Donatella Melucci has somewhat negative reviews on RMP [April: that's ratemyprofessors.com, use it], but she is the BOMB. It's a lot of work, but what do you expect for a 6-credit course? Italian is an easy language to pick up if you already speak a romance language and you'll be surprised how quickly you pick it up. There are so so so may opportunities for study abroad and the dept. takes care of it's own. Definitely recommend

German

Yuchen Liu:

German is very intense. I took 3 intensive courses, essentially 3 years of regular material condensed into one year. Regular writing and speaking tasks require quite an amount of time, if one values the quality of his assignments. By the end of intermediate, students will be reading poems, newspaper articles and a novel. The up-side of Gtown's (intensive) German training is students will soon be able to discuss a range of more sophisticated topics: history, current affairs, etc rather than stuck with ordering food in a restaurant. The down-side is conversational German is paid less attention to. It is possible that after 2 semesters one is more familiar with vocabs associated with post-war Germany than with groceries. Small class size encourages discussion and one-on-one conversation. Terrific summer program. Intensive German will probably suck one's life out but overall a great experience.

Latin

Scott Garosshen:

Latin (Advanced):

Pros- You will read whole works; not snippets. The Classics Dpt. is really good at focusing reading on: 1) What is the author actually trying to say? 2) Why are we reading this in Latin rather than in translation? Particularly with Prof. McNelis (highly recommend), you will learn how to read as much as you will learn how to read Latin. The emphasis is on primary rather than secondary literature, but you will also be expected to critique secondary sources and theory-related questions will come up naturally during class discussion. Even more so than with Greek, being able to read/familiar with the literature will give you a solid basis in the foundations of this whole Western Culture thing, which is surprisingly applicable to jobs ranging from legal work ('Roman Law' is offered from time to time) to politics to journalism. Oh, and the works chosen are generally just fun to read in their own right. Fantastic faculty + Challenging authors = Some of the best classes I've taken at GU.

Cons- There is no formal grammar at the advanced level; you just read the works and if someone asks something grammar/vocab-related, you discuss it. But it's up to you to go to office hours if you need help beyond that. You're also going to be in a class with Post-Bacs, which can be intimidating. The professor will often ask many more questions than give answers when it comes to interpreting what you're reading, and some students have trouble with the lack of closure- you are expected, though not necessarily required, to think about things on your own time. When it comes to papers, many students aren't used to arguing rigorously in a language class. This will cost you, though you will learn.

Japanese

Nicholas Miller:

I find that the Japanese department is the closest GU has to an ideal language department. Japanese classes are fun and challenging, and have a lot of variety in terms of activities and materials--you aren't just working through the textbook or having endless lectures or free discussions. All of the professors are super-competent and helpful. Student motivation is very high for the most part, and there's a good mix of backgrounds and interests. The language majors I met have all been highly proficient in the language, which says a lot about the strength of the program.There are many Japanese people on campus and in DC, so you can find a language partner and participate in various cultural events. However, as an intensive language, it is fairly time-consuming (more than Chinese, but less than Arabic).

Korean

Nicholas Miller:

Korean is a fascinating and unique language, and learning it is a wonderful experience because Koreans are INCREDIBLY friendly and welcoming, even more so because there aren't many students of Korean out there, especially compared to Chinese and Japanese. I visited GU when I was still in high school, and asked Prof. Marshall if I could observe her Korean class. She let me, and then we chatted in her office for a half hour, with lots of food and hugs. She remembered me when I came to GU officially--more food, more hugs. She has this relationship with virtually all of her students--ask around, and you'll hear the same. I had two language partners, and I'm still in close touch with both of them. The problem is that the state of Korean pedagogy is not good, so if you want to get good at the language, you will need to do a lot of work on your own. To be blunt, I found that classes were painfully boring at times, and largely consisted of just working through the exercises in the textbook together. So you'll want to get a language partner and come up with ways to practice Korean on your own according to your interests. On the other hand, classes are laid-back and it's easy to get an A without too much work, which could be a relief or maddening depending on your personality.

Polish

Jamie Marshall:

Pros of studying Polish at Georgetown:
For the first 2 years you get to have Professor Sadowska [April: She also teaches Russian], who is easily one of the best professors at Georgetown as well as the best language instructor I've ever had. She's extremely helpful outside of class and knows how to explain the complexities of Polish grammar.

Small classes, so you get a lot of conversation practice and the students can request to do things that aren't on the syllabus.
Relatively easy to get government funding for summer study abroad.
Relatively easy grading.


Pros of studying Polish in general:
Studying Polish is counterintuitve, which will make it a rare asset down the road.
You get to study Polish history and culture, which is surprisingly very applicable to current affairs(http://www.nytimes.com/201​1/06/17/world/europe/17iht​-letter17.html?scp=1&sq=po​land+arab+spring&st=cse

).
It's a great asset to be able to study Poland and work there in the future: it's economy avoided the recession; it's the biggest market in Central Europe - there's more US investment in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary than in India (http://www.warsawvoice.pl/​WVpage/pages/article.php/2​3422/article

); it's influence within the EU is expanding (it currently holds the EU Presidency).


Cons of studying Polish at Georgetown:
The language is only offered formally up through the intermediate level. After that you have to request a tutorial with another professor. You’ll meet once a week and go over texts (books, articles, poems) that you’ve prepared beforehand. At this point you have to take things into your own hands and invest your own time studying vocab, watching Polish movies/TV and finding someone to practice with (e.g a pen pal). It may seem like a low time commitment tutorial, but if you want to make any progress you need to invest more time outside of class than normal.
The textbook is written only in Polish, albeit with pretty graphics to explain things. Although Professor Sadowska will give you all the help you need and more, once again you need to take the initiative and make your own vocab lists.
It’s not offered intensively, even though it’s difficult enough that it should be in order to make progress quickly enough. Polish grammar and pronunciation are harder for to learn than Russian, which Georgetown does offer intensively.


Cons of studying Polish in general:
It’s extremely difficult. There are a lot of strange exceptions in Polish grammar, and some words have 3-4 consonantal sounds in a row.
Most people will think your time would be better spent on Arabic/Russian/Chinese, so you have to learn how to explain why you’re learning Polish. For help, see the pros above.

Portuguese

Frank Anthony Miller:

Although Portuguese is grouped in with Catalan and Spanish in the same department, it is really well-taught. Class sizes are kept really small, and, out of the two classes I've taken so far, I've had no more than 15 students in each of my classes. For better or for worse, it's commonly assumed that, if you're going to take Portuguese at Georgetown, you've had some experience with Spanish, hence why the typical introductory class is "Portuguese for Spanish Speakers." Even if you've not had such experience, it's still a relatively easy language to learn, and proficiency is typically easy to come by after Intermediate II or Advanced I. There are only one or two courses taught intensively, but, even in the courses that aren't intensive, you still learn a lot rather quickly.

Most professors are from Brazil (Santos, Campos-Siddique, Ferreira), but there are two who are from Portugal (Vieira and Martinho-Ferreira), so you'll get exposure to both dialects, which is great for well-rounded instruction in the language. All have great senses of humour, and most are somewhat laid-back…it just comes with the culture! Most classes, except for one or two advanced-level classes, are taught by professors instead of TAs. The textbooks are typically good, and sometimes you don't even really need them.

Portuguese is one of the most-spoken languages in the world, although Brazil makes up the vast majority of its speakers. Not only are Brazilian and Portuguese cultures interesting to study, Brazil's growing economic influence.. There are quite a few Brazilians who come to Georgetown, and there's also a Brazilian Club, so there's never a shortage of opportunities to speak it on campus.

Welcome to GU + Surviving Leos

Anthony Robbins once said that “In life you need either inspiration or desperation.” He wasn't kidding. With the renewal of yearly acceptance letters arriving in various homes (I imagine, via owl) I feel it is necessary that I begin posting up new information to Georgetown's newest. Congratulations! If you haven't read this blog before, you should jump back to the beginning and start reading there, and follow me or subscribe via RSS--I will be posting all kinds of helpful hints that will help to make your transition to Georgetown a little bit easier.

That being said, today's topic is the most concrete example of inspiration born of desperation: surviving Leos.


/* If you just want to jump straight to the meal ideas, head down until you
* see the next comment section. If you want to read my humorous rant about
* Leos, read on.
*/


When you arrive here, you will be lulled into a false sense of security regarding Leos. It is expansive--with two floors, and it's own stir-fry bar, you will be impressed. In comparison to anything you have heretofor experienced, it will seem incredible. Cakes of all varieties; icecream in freshly made waffle cones, with every sauce imaginable; cookies by the hundreds for your taking after every single meal.

You will listen to the upper classmen complain, and you will think to yourself. "Surely, with all of this variety, I will be happy for the next two years of required on-campus meals."


This is a lie.


Georgetown's cafeteria has variety--but it is the same variety. The "different every day meals" are variations on the same 20 things, half of which are only eaten by the very brave and the very vegetarian ("Israeli couscous in a plumb eggplant curry"...okay, that's only half in jest); whereas the various things that are available every day become quickly old. The first semester at Leos is fine. You eat the hundreds of cookies, you gain the freshmen fifteen, you stop eating the cookies, you start eating the cake, you gain the freshman twenty, you panic and start living at Yates and eating the scary vegan dishes, and everything turns out ok. But beginning with second semester, things start to get bad. You've had pasta and/or stir-fry for at least one meal every three days; you cannot stomach another cardboard pizza; the lines for everything get longer and you choose more often to eat the "guess what I am vegan saute of the day" option. At some point, the obligation to eat the 13$ worth of food they charge you for makes Leos some kind of a strange Vegan-based chore (did I mention that Georgetown is in the top ten for best Vegan cafeterias in America? The are making sure they hold on to that by increasing the oddness of the vegan dishes available), and you begin to get desperate.


This is when you start to get creative. By the time you reach your sophomore year at Georgetown, you develop a number of academic, social, and gastronomic tricks. You learn that, to buy yourself time on an essay, you can take a picture, save it as a .docx file, and email it to your professor (it will look like a corrupted file, and you'll get the extra day or so before the professor checks your attachment to fix the essay)*; you've learned that Georgetown has an unspoken rule that Freshman don't buy alcohol, and that the upper classmen buy it on a "pass it on" basis for future years (this is off of campus knowledge, not personal--I'm a teetotaler--and I really don't recommend under 21's drink, as if the metro cops catch you your ass is grass); and you learn to survive at Leos.


Learning Leos is kind of like playing that game Alchemy on your android phone. You start with four basic elements, and then you have to form hundreds of things from those four things. Leos is just like that.


I want to save you from this experience. I hope, that by passing on my experience, I can save you all from that second semester of ill-fated exploration with what can, cannot, and should not, be combined at Leos.


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//THINGS YOU CAN COMBINE AT LEOS AND THEIR LOCATIONS
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


//DOWNSTAIRS


1) BLT
In the morning/brunch (all day...) weekends: Bacon (breakfast bar) + lettuce, mayo, tomato (sandwich section) + toast (sandwich section + dry reheater)


2) Fried Egg Sandwhich / Egg McMuffin
Egg from Egg station (ask for a fried egg instead of an omelet at the receiving end of the hamburger/etc. station, they'll do it) + toast (sandwich section + reheater) or English muffing/roll + mayo


3) Better Personal Pizza
Abuse the salad station to increase your toppings; also consider using the English muffins. They will accept those as valid personal pizza crusts. Also consider using pita bread and feta cheese from the salad bar (thanks, Beth!)


4) Better Ice Cream
* If you ask for a fresh waffle cone, they will make it
* If you heat a cookie in the microwaves, you can then drown it in fudge and coat with ice cream. the same can be done with apple and cherry pie. However, I did warn you about the whole freshman fifteen thing, right?
* you can plug up the bottom of a waffle cone with either fresh fudge + a quick application of ice cream or a marshmallow. The marshmallow will plug it up, as will frozen fudge if you can do it quick enough.
* soda machine + ice cream = root beer float.
* cookie + soft serve + cookie = cookie icecream sandwich
* I've also heard people discuss "desert pizzas", but I have no idea what is meant by this...you might have to experiment.


5) Better sandwich
Use the salad station to your advantage. Toast your bread; use the panini grill. Keep an eye out at the meat section upstairs for fresh roast beef with gravy--quick and easy open-faced roast beef sandwich. Also, consider the fresh bread upstairs instead of the bag bread. Garlic bread sandwich? Why not!

* Also, "Leos Chicken Madness":
- 1 sub roll from sandwich station
- tomatoes, lettuce, onion, cheese from sandwich station, to taste
- 1-2 pieces grilled chicken from bistro
- if you like peppers, im almost positive the diner has them... they also always have bacon if you ask

toast sub roll, cut up chicken, mix with "veggies," place in sub roll, cover with cheese, fold over, place in microwave for 30s. (Thanks Dan!)


6) Fruit and Granola parfait
Yogurt from salad section + granola from cereal section + fruit from the salad section (fresh bananas, apples, and oranges upstairs in the barrels and peaches usually near the salad downstairs).


7) Unlock unknown options
The burger bar makes things that aren't on the list. I consider it a kind of guessing game. Submit options, and see if they make them. For example, they make grilled cheese. I'm almost sure they could make bacon grilled cheese...experiment.


//UPSTAIRS
8) Non-vegan pasta
So, as part of the vegan takeover, the pasta fryers don't offer any meat, and the line is long. Better option: Grab the same pasta and sauce from the veggie bar, then grab the veggies you want from the pasta bar. Split with all of it over to the stir-fry bar. They will add stir-fry beef, chicken, or shrimp along with any stir-fry items you want, and fry up you pasta from the other section. Plus, they are faster, and your food wont be drowning in oil.


9) Similarly, more-options Stir-fry
Just grab salad bar or pasta bar veggies before you head over to stir-fry. The daily mystery meat option and the wrap bar may also give you new non-vegetarian-friendly alternatives. Bonus: whole baked chicken breast are available at the taco bar. They wont tell you that, but they are, just ask.


10) Free study snacks
If you chill out with your homework in Leos from 2-5, it will be relatively quiet. This is because they stop putting out lunch food and they haven't started putting out dinner food by this time. This means you can snag a table somewhere quiet to work, and you can grab candy from the ice cream toppings bar, or veggies from the salad bar, or dried cereal or whatever to munch on. You'll have a big, quiet table with drinks and snacks for several hours. If you are so inclined, you can put off lunch until two, then stay until dinner starts coming out at 4:30. This will save you a meal, which you can use to get breakfast on the weekends or for a spare grab and go.


I will continue to update this list as other upperclassmen write me in submissions, but for now, good luck with Leos! Please remember that anyone can email me with ANY QUESTIONS about student life at GU, and I will answer them either privately or on this blog. Once again, I am NOT a representative of Georgetown, I do this in my spare time, I don't give legal advice, don't do anything post here if it seems immoral or illegal (I'm probably just making a joke, anyway) and I'm only here to help. :) Have a good one,
April

p.s - Off campus dining guide will be in a future blog post.


*I'll post an academic tricks tutorial too, no worries.
*I also don't really recommend this. I'm sure if you get caught the university would have a hernia, and I think it would turn out badly. I have heard of it being done, however, and there's nothing wrong with passing along the possibility for your, erm, academic discussion of its practicality, if not moral uprightness.