McTighe Prize Winner Shares Lessons from Abroad
October 21, 2010
“Now it’s your turn. This is your moment. Go. Make stories worth telling your parents, your friends, and—even someday—your children.” With those words, Yonatan Moskowitz (C’11), winner of 2010 McTighe Prize, rallied incoming students at the New Student Convocation on August 29. The prize honors an undergraduate student each year who embodies the Georgetown University ideal of academic excellence and community involvement. The opportunity to address first year College students enabled Moskowitz to share some of the key lessons he has learned during his Georgetown career.
Moskowitz, who is majoring in economics and philosophy, explained that his philosophy classes encouraged him to question political and social realities, and at the same time explore his own identity. Ultimately, this personal and intellectual search led Moskowitz to foreign and unfamiliar shores. During the fall of 2009, Moskowitz studied abroad at the American University in Egypt. “Cairo taught me a lot about myself,” he said. “I had a lot of fun, I met a lot of great people, I learned a lot about myself, but I have to say, it was very, very tough.”
As a practicing Jew, one of the largest challenges of studying abroad in Egypt was his religious identity. The son of a rabbi, Moskowitz’s faith has been, and remains, an important part of his life. Exercising that faith became more difficult in Egypt, where the Jewish community is almost nonexistent. He explained, “I think it teaches you a lot about yourself when you are a minority, because you constantly have to be reminding yourself of your values, and whether those values do or do not mix well with the people you are surrounded with. It helped me grow as a person.”
In addition to studying abroad, Moskowitz was chosen to be one of approximately 60 students in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs’ Junior Year Abroad Network. The program solicits Georgetown students to write for the Berkley Center’s website about the religion, politics, and society of their host country. In his essays, Moskowitz compared the celebration of Jewish holidays in Egypt against those in America and discussed how he adapted to Cairean culture.
Upon returning to Georgetown in the spring of 2010, Moskowitz decided to apply for the McTighe Prize, having remembered how inspiring Indra Naraan Sen, who won the prize in 2007, was during his address at the New Student Convocation. Moskowitz said the speech made him realize how lucky he was to have the opportunity to attend Georgetown, and inspired him to make the most of the opportunities there.
Winning McTighe Prize was flattering, he admitted. “It’s the biggest honor I think I’ve ever received,” Moskowitz said. “To be trusted with that duty of trying to inspire the people who’ve come here to change themselves and to change the world. It’s just humbling to be given that opportunity.” He explained that while he didn’t expect the new students to remember all that he had said, he hoped that he inspired first year students to embrace all that Georgetown has to offer. “You will never be able to track the influence you had,” said Moskowitz, “but I hoped that it will push them and push some of the people who heard it in the right directions.”
Moskowitz plans on graduating a semester early in December, but has not yet decided what is next. He will be taking a two-month, 580-mile hiking trip across Israel in the spring with a friend and plans on spending some time with his family at home in southern California. Moskowitz also has a number of applications out for graduate schools and service programs and is waiting to see what comes next, he said.
Whatever transpires next, Moskowitz knows that his experience at Georgetown has provided him with the tools he needs to carve out a successful future. As he told the incoming students at the beginning of the semester, “the next Georgetown stories to be written are all yours. That’s an awesome opportunity, and an awesome responsibility. Fight your urge to go it alone. And fight your urge to let others hold you back.”
--Elizabeth Royall
Read Moskowitz's reflections on the Jewish Community in Cairo here at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
Photos by Yovcho Yovchev.
