The fall semester of my third year at The George Washington University passed in a heartbeat! This semester has been entirely offline, which returned a comforting sense of near-normalcy; aside from in-person classes, extracurricular clubs were able to offer their full range of events, and it felt like new opportunities to explore D.C. that had previously been closed (venues for food, music, art, and more!) appeared every day.
My course highlights for this semester were absolutely my Public Health and French courses. Public Health is fiercely interesting, and I’ll actually be declaring a Global Public Health concentration soon! I plan to minor in French, but Fall 2022’s “Writing Women” was my favorite of the courses so far. It focused on female French writers through the 19th and 20th centuries, including literature such as Colette’s La Vagabonde and Sand’s La Petite Fadette; our discussion focused strongly on the female experience and what it meant to be a female writer, which overall led to an incredibly thought-provoking semester!
Outside of classes, I continue to be a member of the Chi Omega sorority, and recently took two lovely new members as Little Sisters! I also went on fun trips with our outdoor activities club, and played the role of Sandrine in our student theatre company’s production of Almost, Maine. In September, I was trained as a server at a restaurant on campus. While occasionally challenging, it has been an exciting new experience, and ultimately provides a nice balance to my spare time. In addition to finding new friendships in the staff, I’ve had fascinating conversations with professionals of various fields (including a few diplomats) that end up at my tables!
I truly had the most wonderful semester yet, and for that (and so, so much more), I am unfathomably grateful to everyone involved with MVYouth: to the community that organizes it, to the donors who sustain it, and to Lindsey who tells us how proud she is in every email. I am so excited for next semester, and I am so grateful to you all for making it possible!!!