“Personal Growth” Posts

Showing 35 “Personal Growth” posts

  • Desert Hoya

    Becoming a Diplomat at Georgetown University in Qatar

    January 13, 2026 · By Carl Jambo (GU-Q’28)

    Emotions flared and tensions were high. Only 48 hours remained before complete environmental destruction. The FSO Safer, an oil tanker was leaking in the Red Sea and the greater the delay to extract the oil and fix the leak, the closer the world came to loss of marine biodiversity and disruption of an essential trade route. This hypothetical scenario was my introduction to Georgetown’s International Negotiation and Crisis Simulation.

  • Desert Hoya

    From Doha to Buenos Aires: How Global Education Shaped Me

    December 17, 2025 · By Jay Pacer (GU-Q '26)

    “How should we reinvent the city?” This is the type of question that Georgetown students like me are being trained to answer on the daily. We talk about a plethora of things–from the stock market to the politics of conserving energy. Here, discourse that questions, provokes, and stretches you is normal. So when I landed in Buenos Aires in Argentina for the Doha Debates Town Hall, it felt like the most natural extension of what we already do in the classroom.

  • Desert Hoya

    Snowstorms, Falafel, and Finding Home in D.C.

    December 15, 2025 · By Zarrish Ahmed (GU-Q'26)

    In Spring 2025, I boarded my first-ever flight to the “West,” bound for Washington, D.C. I was one of only a few students from GU-Q studying abroad that semester. Most of my classmates had already gone in the fall, and I had initially planned the same. But when I sat down to map out my independent Certificate in South Asian Studies, everything shifted.

  • Desert Hoya

    Raising the Georgetown Flag at the Biggest International Law Moot Court Competition

    November 18, 2025 · By Carl Jambo (GU-Q’28)

    Sometimes the most courageous step you can take is to clench your fists, whisper an affirmation of hope, and press ‘submit’ on that Google form. It was 11:00PM, less than an hour to the deadline as I sat staring at the application for the Georgetown Moot Court team. I couldn’t help but wonder whether I would be good enough,  right up until the moment I clicked submit. That single click became the spark that set the stage for an unimaginable intercontinental journey to North America.

  • Desert Hoya

    I am the First Turkmen Hoya at Georgetown University in Qatar

    November 17, 2025 · By Jennet Soltanova (GU-Q’29)

    On my 20th birthday this year, I left Turkmenistan, with excitement, nerves, and the pressure of walking into uncertainty. After a gap year following my FLEX exchange in Texas (Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) is a competitive, merit-based scholarship program funded by the United States government), I was finally traveling abroad, alone this time. In the U.S., I had always had a safety net: a host family waiting with warm meals, a host father who drove me to school, a host mother who answered every question I had – and yes, even the ones that probably made her question her life choices. This time was different.

  • Desert Hoya

    Beyond Borders: What a Fishing Village in Indonesia Taught Me About True Community Engagement

    November 9, 2025 · By Hassan Amin (GU-Q'27)

    As part of Georgetown University in Qatar's Community Engagement Program, I traveled to Indonesia expecting to make a difference. Instead, the community made a difference in me. Our journey began with three days in Jakarta, conversations at Georgetown Asia Pacific with Scott Guggenheim and Yuhki Tajima, walks through old Batavia exploring the remnants of five different colonizations, and visits to the Istiqlal Mosque and Jakarta Cathedral. But it was the four days that followed in a fishing village that truly transformed my understanding of what it means to engage with a community.

  • Desert Hoya

    Teaching English, Learning Everything Else

    November 6, 2025 · By Radiyah Ahmed (GU-Q'28)

    If there’s one thing people eventually learn about me, it’s that I have a thing for languages. I currently speak seven, and am always on the lookout for new ways to use them, or sneak an eighth onto the list. That’s why Georgetown Qatar feels like such a perfect fit for me. Every hallway, you hear sounds like an orchestra of accents and dialects; Arabic, Urdu, French, Tagalog, Somali, Russian, you name it. Every conversation feels like a mini language exchange, and for someone like me, that’s basically heaven.

  • Desert Hoya

    How GU-Q Taught Me the Value of Unlearning

    October 30, 2025 · By Zarrish Ahmed (GU-Q'26)

    Zarrish Ahmed is a senior at Georgetown University in Qatar majoring in International Politics with an independent Certificate in South Asian Studies. She reflects on how studying South Asian history reshaped her understanding of identity, power, and education.

  • Desert Hoya

    What I Learned About Growth (and Myself) as a Georgetown Pre-College Program Peer Tutor

    September 30, 2025 · By Alex Bonjoc (GU-Q'27)

    Within my academic career at Georgetown, I have been fortunate. I have had multiple opportunities to grow, learn, fail, and succeed. However, so far, the most transformative experience I’ve had took place this summer as a Georgetown Pre-college Summer Program (GPS) Peer Tutor.

  • Desert Hoya

    What I’ll Miss about Doha, What I Can’t Wait For as I Study Abroad at Georgetown’s Villa Le Balze in Florence, Italy

    September 30, 2025 · By Sama Alissa (GU-Q'27)

    Ever since my first semester at GU-Q, I’ve been looking forward to going abroad. Not because I couldn’t wait to get away from GU-Q, but because I heard from upperclassmen how their study abroad experiences changed them, and I’ve always felt a longing for that feeling that they described. As my junior year was approaching, it started becoming a reality. I filled out the applications, packed my room, and left Doha knowing that I would not return for another 8 months.