Integration 1

Integration 1 Prompt 1 Upon arriving on Notre Dame’s campus, I was immediately overwhelmed by all of the new experiences I had awaiting me and all of the new people there were to meet. I had forty-three people in my high school graduating class, so my sensory overload was in full swing. Welcome Weekend was an incredibly fun, yet slightly harrowing experience in which freshmen would meant to meet as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. It was very overwhelming, yet well-meaning. In most instances, people couldn’t get past the fact that I was from Indiana, but did not live in South Bend. I didn’t find their ignorance offensive, but rather amusing and ever-so slightly bittersweet. My friends and I soon noticed that we would refer to people based on the single fact that we had time to learn about them; smart, talented young men and women that we would eventually become friends with would be condensed to epithets like “Dan from Dillon”, “Jen the Tennis Player”, or “Man Bun Gavin”. As a function of the constant activities and icebreakers, my friends and I were guilty of imposing on our new classmates a “single story” as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie refers to it. Much like Chimamanda did not wish to be held bound by the untrue stereotypes of her race, I’m certain that college freshman do not want to be labeled, even if only by their dorm name. In the first couple weeks, I tried to be completely honest with my new friends about who I was, what my interests, values, hopes, and dreams were. I didn’t want to create false expectations or try to be anything other than who I was; college is a wonderful time to genuinely explore your identity. By imposing “single stories” on all of the new people I hadn’t immediately become close with, I was not allowing them the same luxury. I should not have taken their presumptuous attitudes in regards to where I’m from as a definitive lack of interest in getting to know me, but that is a mistake that I’m trying to correct now. I’ve understood my experience in context as I’ve learned about the Five Pillars of a Holy Cross Education, and in particular, Family. The Holy Cross Family is a supportive and inclusive one that is rooted in genuine care and interest. Students at Notre Dame aren’t inclined to take care of each other only because it’s the right thing to do, but because they truly view each other as family. We live, eat, learn, and pray together; I already know more about some of the friends that I’ve had here for a month than some of the friends I had in high school. While Welcome Weekend was strange at times, it taught us from the onset what being a part of the Notre Dame family means. Going forward with my Notre Dame career, I hope to make a concerted effort to get to know my friends, hall mates, and classmates on a deeper, more personal level. I can do this by going out of my way to get to know them and by being an active listener.

Integration 1 Prompt 2 One of the first events at Notre Dame for which I felt completely unprepared was Activities Night; I honestly don’t think I have ever felt so overwhelmed in my entire life. In my attempt to explore new communities and cultures at my new school, I ended up wandering through the JACC lost, sore, and confused. My wonderful friend Bridget seemed to have a precise game plan that involved a combination of Club Lacrosse, Spanish Society, and Leprechaun Legion, while I could hardly find my way to the info booth to get a map in one piece. Needless to say, it was not the seamless experience I was hoping for. I woke up the next morning to an inbox full of “Welcome to our Club!” and “Out First Meeting is Tomorrow” e-mails from groups that I never remembered signing up for. My attempt at immersing myself into new communities had failed; the blur that was Activities Night was now wreaking havoc on my cyber sanity and my schedule as I quickly realized how few of the clubs I actually had time for. As discussed in Week 5 of the Moreau First Year Experience course, I quickly became sleep-deprived and very stressed out. All of my meetings seemed to be occurring at the same exact time on opposite ends of campus. I would stay up into the wee hours of Monday morning because I would choose Sunday evening meetings over Sunday evening study sessions. Also not unknown to me was the test taking anxiety discussed by Peter Gwynne in his ​US News & World Report​ article. To sum up the aftermath, I felt like I had too much on my plate and I was also trying to balance multiple of these plates at once. My time management skills were seriously struggling to cope. My experience at the Activities Fair was exempletive of two pillars of a Holy Cross education: hope and zeal. I was hopeful that, in taking the time to explore all of my options, I would find groups that I would enjoy and that would create positive impacts on my life. In creating the various clubs, the presidents and members also displayed a certain kind of hope, a hope in inspiring others to pursue passions and share their interests. Similar in purpose is the Holy Cross pillar of Zeal, a desire to bring out the good in yourself as well as in those around you. For example, I ended up signing up for many community service – based organizations because I was very involved in them as a high schooler; I enjoyed being able to use my skills and talents to help those around me and I hope to continue that as a college student. Going forward, I think one of the most appropriate goals that I can set for myself would be to narrow down the list of organizations that I want to be a part of and fully commit to those instead of only half-committing to a lot of different groups. This way, I will be able to more deeply investigate specific cultures on campus.

Integration 1 Prompt 3 I really enjoyed the performing arts at my high school; they were enjoyable to participate in without being massively competitive. It was an opportunity that I appreciated without ever truly investing myself in. So, when it came time to fill out my course request form for Notre Dame, I decided on a whim to register for Introduction to Theatre. On the first day, my professor confidently told the students, a melting pot of aerospace engineers, chemistry majors, and English enthusiasts, that at a minimum three of us would be theatre majors before the course concluded. I thought that this estimation was a bit outlandish, but I was also not quite prepared to have my academic interests altered. Within weeks, Browning Cinema in DPAC became a home away from home; I was given tours around the Film, Television, Theatre student lounges and trained to work in the scene shop. I never thought the theatre world was a feasible place to pursue a career if you weren’t an actor until I sat in a lecture about dramaturgs, critics, and producers. Needless to say, I have a whole new set of emerging academic and cultural interests from only having been in Introduction to Theatre for a month, and it took a major amount of reflection upon the five pillars of a Holy Cross education to get to where I am. In particular, the pillar of Mind , was important in this process of self-discovery. Instead of simply reading my textbook, I tried to actively engage in the course by attending productions (perhaps the same one multiple times) and learning how to be a part of them myself. Through this attempt at “learning by doing”, I was able to understand my interests and how to foster them. As it relates to the Moreau First Year Experience course, I think that the Week 3 segment on forming friendships was important to the developing of my emerging academic interests in the Film, Television, Theatre department. My friends’ major are so vastly different from mine; I’m planning to study English, and I’m the best of friends with future chemists and neurosurgeons. Yet, they always support my goals and interests because they know that they make me happy. I in turn do the same; although I don’t entirely understand psychology and the Periodic Table seems to me to be a random jumble of letters, I have and incredible amount of respect for the academic interests of those around me for that specific reason. Going forward, I hope to explore my new interests even further by staying involved with the theatre department after I have finished my class. I can do this by both auditioning for shows and by supporting the Film, Television, and Theatre department by attending productions that I am not a part of.