Category: Georgetown Faces

Title: Bella Gerard (C’17)

Bella Gerard smiles for the camera in front of the Washington Monument.

“I’m from New Jersey – just like everybody else at Georgetown. At least that’s what I thought on day one, but since then I’ve met friends from all over the world that now feel like family. Now I’ve got my real home in NJ, one here on the Hilltop, and others all over the world with the people I love.

I remember the moment I got my acceptance letter to Georgetown – I was in London studying Shakespeare, having the worst day ever. (To have a bad day somewhere as amazing as London means it’s pretty rough, let me tell you.) I went with a group of friends to the Harry Potter hot spot Platform 9 3/4; it was there I got the call from my family letting me know I got in. I burst out crying, and everyone thought I was simply excited over the Harry Potter stuff. Because of this, I laugh a little extra any time someone compares Healy Hall to Hogwarts.

Coming from a family of Hoyas, Georgetown was always the dream. Since getting accepted, I wear the name “Hoya” as proudly as I do my own last name. My father went to Georgetown, as did his brother and sister, and their father came here for med school. The hilltop just made sense for me, and there was never a moment when I second-guessed that this was the place I belonged. Everything about it felt second-nature to me, and the Georgetown traditions felt as familiar to me as my family’s own personal traditions. Now, my younger sister goes here as well, and thinking about our family’s Georgetown legacy makes being here with her all the more meaningful. “

More Georgetown Faces

A woman with black hair, glasses and a black blazer smiles while sitting behind a table with a laptop in front of her.

Yi Song (L’10) first visited Georgetown as a 22-year-old exchange student. Now she helps international law students build fulfilling careers, just as she has.

A man with gray hair and a mustache stands in front of a football field. He wears an olive jacket.

When Tom Crowley arrived in 1997 as a maintenance electrician, he had an unexpected task: decking the university’s 19-foot Christmas tree with lights.

Fr. David Pratt has been a chaplain at Georgetown for eight years. Before that, he spent over two decades serving on aircraft carriers and aboard destroyer squadrons in the Navy.