Admission into Georgetown

William Roth

Anthropology - Professor Jegathesan

December 5, 2012

Final Ethnography

Jesuit Institution or Just another University

My admission into Georgetown started a big debate in my household. While neither of my parents thought that the fact it was a Jesuit institution should be the only reason that I attended Georgetown or not, they both felt strongly about it one way or another. My Mom felt that going to a school that immerses you in one religion was dangerous, because it didn't allow you to see a range of faith and perspectives. She called it the "Catholic Colt" and believed that it almost brainwashed you to believe in a certain catholic dogma. My father on the other hand thought that a Jesuit institution was something to be valued very highly because it meant a tight knit community with strong moral values. My parents aren't the only one that comes up with a plethora of both positive associations when the think of a Jesuit institution --- most people at least have some sort of preconceived notion that they tie to one. This ethnography attempts to examine these notions by attempting to identify what Georgetown as a Jesuit institution means and how it affects one's spirituality and religious beliefs.

However, when I started brainstorming this project some months back I had a very different notion: I originally planned studying how Georgetown students living situations defined them and the community. After starting out with some very unfruitful interviews, it appeared that my results were going to be uninteresting and meaningless. After talking to my group, and feeding off of their ideas this was the progression of my project: how people changed at their time in college → how people's view of their own self worth changed → people's spiritual health at college → currently: how being at a Georgetown affects a students spirituality and religion.

This was certainly a big topic and an important one too; my methods, although taking advantage of the little time I had to the best of my skills, merely scrape the depth of the topic. My methods were interviews. I had to keep my focus narrow and efficient, which meant that I was missing out on a lot of information that could be received from a wide scoped project. My field was only Georgetown's campus, so I did not interview how people from the outside view Georgetown as a religious entity or how it shaped alumni's religion and spirituality. Also, I narrowed my interview subjects to students who were currently at Georgetown and were at least Juniors so that they had enough time to reflect on how Georgetown may have changed them. In the end I had 7 interview subjects: five of were Christian, junior, males; two were Christian, junior, females; and one was a Hindu, junior, female. In my interviews I asked the subjects about the following questions:

1. Do you consider yourself more or less religious or spiritual since you have been at Georgetown?

2. What religious classes have you taken at Georgetown and how big of an impact have they had on you?

3. How has being part of a Jesuit institution had an effect on you?

4. How often do engage in religious dialogue with your friends outside of class?

5. How often do you engage in interfaith dialogue with friends outside of class?

Although I had a very small sample size, I think that I learned a great deal about the influence