A Day With ... Jade Williams ’18

Jade Williams ’18 is a Woodrow Wilson School concentrator and the president of Cap and Gown Club. We caught up with her on the first Tuesday in February, which was the last day of bicker. Later in the week, Cap would welcome 103 new members, but Williams was still meeting 267 bickerees on Tuesday. 

Morning routine I had class at 11, so I got up around 10. The breakfast is earlier than that, so there wasn’t any food left out, but normally I like to grab a cup of tea before I go to class. The night before, we had ended bicker around 10:45, but then we had an officer meeting, and I also wanted to do some work, so I went to bed around 2 a.m. 

French 317 I’m allocating part of my thesis to the French certificate, which includes a part in French, but I’m also talking about immigrants in France in general and how different social hierarchies are created among different immigrant populations. I thought that this class — “Visions of Paris” — would help me get a greater understanding of how Paris is structured because it focuses on the historical aspects of Paris, Parisian society, and how the city was built based off of the people who lived there. 

Sushi I went back to Cap for lunch. Our chef’s name is Chef Greg, and the officers work closely with him. We had a meeting with him earlier in the semester where I told him how much I like it when we have sushi, so when I saw that we had sushi, I got really excited. I sat in the old dining hall, which is generally where people sit if they want to sit with fewer people and do work. One of the officers came up to me to discuss how bicker and discussions would go that night. 

Seminar I had Politics 488: “Secession, the Civil War, and the Constitution.” I now have the freedom to take classes I’m interested in rather than just prerequisites, and I’ve always been interested in the Civil War. The professor started off with an overview of the main points in the class: the politics of secession, the social aspects of secession, and the legality of secession. 

Thesis I really wanted to work on my thesis, but I ended up having to focus on bicker and discussions that night. The one thing I was able to do was to mail a physical letter requesting the data I needed with the signature of my adviser, so I went to the post office and mailed the documents to the office in Paris.

Williams discusses the night’s bicker schedule with club officers Jarryd Osborne ’18, left, and Ify Ikpeazu ’18.

Sameer A. Khan

Club living I met up with some friends in the TV room, and then we played some pool in the game room. Afterward, I did need to send a couple of emails and just catch up on some things, so I worked in the library for a bit. I love living in an eating club because basically everything I need is right here: my meals, my friends, my room, and — since I’m a Woodrow Wilson School major — my classes are generally just down the street. Sometimes I don’t even realize that I haven’t left the house during the day because there are so many things going on. 

Dinner Dinner started at 6, and normally I eat right at 6. It was really good shepherd’s pie. I sat with my friends for dinner. Since it was the second day of classes, most people were talking about their classes, what the professors were like, and just what they had gone through throughout the day. 

Bicker Bicker started at 7:30. Bicker all three days for Cap is essentially the same: We have a mix of games and interviews. The games are essentially like icebreakers or games to get to know someone, and that’s just a way to have a non-serious conversation with someone new. And then, when it comes to interviews, those are more personal questions, usually about why they want to be in the club, what they do on campus, but it’s just to get to know them outside of talking to other people or in a game. I was mostly helping with admin and logistical stuff — signing bickerees in, answering any questions they had, making sure that games and interviews were going well. 

Candidate discussions I can’t talk about discussions. Tuesday night, we ended Wednesday morning at around 6 or so. Since we have some of the highest numbers of bickerees on the Street — we had to discuss 267 people — we try to split that up by night and leave enough time at the end of the week so we can get our information to the Interclub Council. After the members left, the officers cleaned up. Then we had an officers meeting to discuss how the next day’s discussions would go. I got to sleep around 8 a.m. I slept for three or four hours, and then I had lunch.

Edited and condensed by Anna Mazarakis ’16