Good news readers — you too can be a part of The Hoya. Applications for our fall semester columnists have just opened; you can find them all here on Facebook.

But what exactly does a columnist do? Columnists are Georgetown students (and a few professors) who write either every or every other week for the opinion or sports sections or The Guide. What you can write about depends on which section you want to write for. To help you figure out into which section your voice would best fit, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite columns from the last year.

Opinion

Mark Stern (COL ’13) wrote a column called Letters of the Law where he explored the Constitutional law underlying many hot button politic issues. He wrote about the Supreme Court’s handling of the oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry (that’s the Prop 8 case), issues of the Second Amendment, and efforts of the D.C. Council to restrict students’ rights.

Khadijah Davis (COL ’15) wrote  The Ethnicity of Femininity, where she often spoke about issues related to feminism, race and diversity. Check out her columns about Beyoncé’s role as a feminist and how pluralism can be better acted upon at Georgetown.

My personal favorite column is As This Jesuit Sees It … which rotates between members of Georgetown’s Jesuit community. Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., wrote a column about viewing ourselves as part of a legacy of Georgetown students, Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., wrote one more than a year ago about the problems of perfectionism and Fr. Patrick Rogers, S.J. provided some valuable perspective as finals bore down on campus.

The Guide

Preston Mui (COL ’13) wrote one of my personal favorite Guide columns: Burleith Bartender. Dedicated to keeping Georgetown’s consumption of mediocre drinks at bay, he shared recipes for pitchers that would please any party, his favorite ways to enjoy gin and the tools any novice bartender needs.

Allie Doughty (COL ’13) penned a column in the fall about the funny intricacies of language called Georgetown Babel. She wrote about the figurative language that makes up weird idioms and the different phrases you’ll hear on the different coasts. Nicole Jarvis (COL ’15) also wrote a lifestyle column entitled Pardon My French about the strange things that keep her ticking, from burritos with french fries in them to the Van Gogh socks that get her through midterms.

Allie Prescott (COL ’14) shared her music tastes in her column Amplify, from her favorite classy tunes to her feelings about the musical year that was. Zach Gordon (COL ’15) shared his slightly less conventional music tastes, from his defense of Selena Gomez to his love of Björk. And I’ve personally written a column called Girl Meets World where I talked about, amongst other things, how friendships don’t get enough screen time, what Liz Lemon of “30 Rock” meant to me and how there aren’t enough fat people on television.

Sports

Tom Hoff (MSB ’15) took some controversial opinions in his column Down to the Wire. He argued that we ought to forgive Michael Vick, explained how race played a role in the media coverage of UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad and looked at how injuries just might end professional football as we know it.

Arik Parnass (COL ’15), the Candid Canadian, often talked about sports that don’t get as much coverage. He wrote about his love of tennis player Andy Roddick and the way nationalism complicates where international soccer players end up. Laura Wagner (COL ’15) explained how Novak Djokovic’s success might be tainted given tennis’ flawed drug testing.

Former senior sports editors Pat Curran (COL ’14) and Evan Hollander (SFS ’14)  shared a column about the Men’s Basketball team. Reading Pat’s NCAA tournament hopes, while humorous, still stings a bit in light of how things turned out. In the emotional turmoil of Georgetown’s loss, Evan laid out how difficult it was to find the reason why they can’t find postseason success.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. Click around our website, look at the applications and apply by August 5th!