E Hi everyone Welcome To You Belong at ND my name is lean Francisco I am an admissions counselor here at the University of Notre Dame I work with students from parts of Texas as well as the American Pacific and Southeast Asia and today we’ll be talking about finding
Community here at Notre Dame with me I have some wonderful Notre Dame students and I’ll go ahead and have them introduce themselves hi everybody my name is Jacob Lopez I’m currently a sophomore here at the University of nor Dame studying business analytics with the minor Latino studies living in
Alumni Hall and I’m originally from Southern California Orange County hi everyone my name is Gaba Sanchez I am a sophomore currently living in Farley Hall majoring in economics and um yeah I’m happy to be here hello everyone my name is JD ridges I’m originally from Paris FRS but I live
In Atlanta Georgia I’m a sophomore studying film television and theater with a minor French and I live in the Dr Hall awesome thank you guys for being here I’m super stoked now before we jump into questions um I have some questions as well as we’ll take some questions
From the audience we do have just a short presentation talking about some student resources and some important things to know just about the University of Notre Dame so to start really going over our first slide let’s talk a little bit about the mission so at Notre Dame
Our mission is really focused on um educating the mind body and spirit so that comes from our roots and being founded by Congregation of Holy Cross we were founded in 1842 by father Edward saurin and he had this mission that this place would be a powerful means for
Doing good in this country that is still something that we do today and we do really focus on that holistic education experience again not just thinking about formation of the mind but also formation in terms of spiritual personal and professional formation now thinking a little bit about where we are located
The University of Notre if you’ve never heard of us or have never been to Campus before we are located in Southbend Indiana We’re located in the midwest in the US not too far from Chicago Illinois about um an hour and a half two hours away from Chicago it is the biggest city
Near us and we’re located and nestled in this area called Southbend it’s one of my favorite places to be actually uh located in this uh small college town we’re not the only College in the area so there’s lots of young folks in the area some of my favorite places are uh
Four Wind Stadium where we have the South Bend Cubs which is a minor league baseball team here in the area we have the moris Performing Art Center as well as a really robust uh food scene with just lots of fresh farm table agriculture coming through the area now thinking about where you will
Find your community on campus um we have lots of places where you will find Community but it does really start in the residence Halls it’s one of our most unique programs on campus we have over 30 residence Halls at Notre Dame each one of them is going to be single sex
Mixed year um and what’s really unique is that each one has their own mascot colors Traditions Signature Events and service organizations they work with they function similarly to fraternity or sority housing um but without the Greek life affiliation I’m sure each of our students uh will tell you why they’re
Hol is the best Hall on campus but we’ll save that for later now thinking about who we are as a university we are a Catholic institution and we’re not going to shy away from that and I think that one of the most beautiful parts of our Catholic tradition is that we really do
Focus on service at Notre Dame really going back to our mission to be a force for good in the world uh we do focus a lot on Service Learning so 80% of our students will participate in service learning here at Notre Dame um and there are lots of opportunities to get
Involved in Faith Life if you choose to do so I think one of the most beautiful parts of Notre Dame is that we have students coming from all 50 states and over 70 different countries and they’re coming with all sorts of different beliefs and traditions of their own and
That that goes the same with faith Traditions um the way that I like to phrase it is I’m from California from Southern California as well and if everyone on campus was from California that’d be kind of boring right so we want this to be an enriching experience
For all of our students we invite students from all all Faith Traditions or no faith Tradition at all to be part of our campus now we are dedicated to diversity in and inclusion here at Notre Dame and some things to think about is that we have lots of support systems we do
Respect Dignity of all of every person which really goes back to our Catholic Social teaching really thinking about being kind compassionate human beings again thinking about that holistic education our students aren’t just studying eating and sleeping um they really are working Community together and that really goes back to our mission
And our um promise to really promote diversity and inclusion on our campus the way that we do that we have a bunch of resources on the next slide um some of my favorites are listed here I know we have um the let me see here which one is it oh the Multicultural student
Programs and services is one of my favorites we actually have a newly renovated Center for diversity equity and inclusion on campus it is absolutely gorgeous it’s actually going to be one of my favorite spots this fall as I’m working in the office here and need a
Break want to head over to the center and um the Multicultural student programs and services are located there the office of student enrichment gender relations Center as well as a giant Community Kitchen that students are able to um you know dine together break bread together it’s a really lovely space but
Located here we do have lots of other resources that we will also talk about in just a little bit now thinking about the first year class this is a breakdown of who our first year class was this year uh we enrolled just over 2,000 students with almost 5050 with male and
Female um and what I really want to focus on here is where our students are coming from so we have students coming from like I said all 50 states and over 70 different countries I believe actually it’s more than 80 now different countries and going back to the piece
That I said about residents life something I do want to mention is that each student their first year will be randomly assigned a roommate they’re not going to be from the same ZIP code or high school as you and that’s a really beautiful moment where students get to create um Community really organically
And it’s really important because we have students coming from again every single state across the US and even more uh different countries as well so we really want to focus on how you find that Community we want to get that right from the GetGo so that was a really uh
Speedy just overview of Who We Are as University I do see lots of questions coming in so thank you so much for your questions now to kick it off I do have one one question that I will ask all of you um and we’ll just kind of go down
The line so for each of you um let see here before I lost my place what was the time when you needed some support from the Notre Dame community and how did you find that support yeah again Jacob here um so one of the things that I needed
The most were were her a career discernment help which um I came so I came in as Premed Neuroscience realized medical school was not for me Sciences was not for me so I was kind of freaking out like saying okay well I never explored anything besid science what do
I do now this is kind of scary um but the career center here is really amazing shout out Karen if you’re watching she helped me a lot um she helped me figure out well like breaking it down into steps first finding my major then finding internships then finding what
Potential career paths I want to explore so I would say one of the best things that I’ve experienced at ning is the career center and also my peers and mentors that I found found here at the University and um professors that really helped a
Lot yeah so um coming in as a first year student in international um one of my main concerns was just just sort of thinking where am I going to be at academically in comparison to US students um just because educational models can to be like very
Different um and I remember I was very intimidated when I first like walked into classrooms just like I was kind of thinking where am I going to be leveled am I going to be like at a similar like discussion like I never like experienced like a classroom like the ones I have
Here which are like well I had like a very small seminar which was like nine people and then I had like 100 people people classroom which is like the more generic courses and I remember just feeling it was like very overwhelming and as a first year student you have to
Take this class called Maro first year experience where you it’s basically your Notre Dame 101 class where you get to learn about the university its Mission uh Father hesper which is one of n’s like most econic figures um and what I liked about it was well mine I got it an
8 A.M Wednesday um a lot of people are not really that willing to talk 8 a.m. Wednesdays but my instructor made it so welcoming she would kick up the class with like some awkward joke um that would kind of make everyone laugh and I remember well it’s a class that is not
Really that demanding but they do still offer office hours and one time I was like I’m just gonna go ahead and talk to my Maro instructor and I went to Maro office hours and I just talked with her in Leon which is this building where well there’s like the newly Lake model
Lake multicult girl Services Program and a few other like restaurants on campus and I just sat with her we had coffee for like an hour I was just telling her yes so this is how I feel on campus um and she just it was so warm it was so it
Felt so welcoming the way she told me like hey like everyone kind of feels the same way you do and I remember like it just felt like so reassuring and it was nice to know that I can rely not only on like my classmates and my room roommate
And my friends but also in faculty which I feel like a lot of people kind of feel even more intimidated about like reaching out to faculty but even the faculty they’re very one everyone jie here again um a time where I really truly needed the Notre
Dame Community was during a time a sense of belonging for myself so coming from Atlanta Georgia um I lived in my mom all my life I grew and became to become a mama’s boy I truly love my mom I love her I miss her so much
And I was always attached her but coming to college it was kind of weird because I remember in kindergarten I used to hold on to her leg wishing not to go to school or not to leave me and now I’m going to school and she’s holding on to
My leg so we just had that blond relationship but just to be up here without my mom without my family that was very tough for me because I’m very family oriented I love to have my family around me just you know Jun around talk sports eat and do things and coming up
To another D which it seems very far from Atlanta not from California from Atlanta it seemed very far and I didn’t have my friends up here nor did I have my family so that was very tough but immediately two occasions the first the first week I immediately
Found my friend group I found a paret of friends just on Notre Dame so at first probably weekend you will know about welcome weekend all the Freshman will come up and it will strictly just be freshman and the upper classman that you can consider your brothers and sisters
And that was just a true uh eye opening experience for me because in my DM we had an open door policy so you know our doors to stay unlock and guys would just randomly come in check in play the game with you T talk you know try to do
Different things just to get to know you and that was just like very interesting and that made me just like find my brothers and form a Brotherhood at the end of the day because I feel like everyone needs a village behind them and it was just so key just having them and
That just didn’t end there you know we go outside play basketball throw the football we go in the city you know go to the museum go to concerts go to baseball games go eat eat on the dining hall text you know it just so many factors that just playing so far that
Made just a strong Brotherhood and it was probably around the middle of the semester first semester when it got pretty cold I’m coming from Atlanta it’s very hot out there I do not like the cold very much so that was tough so the cold is already can be set sad but then
Having you know in those midterm areas and you know towards end of semester it can be very stressful and you kind of Lose Yourself and it was good to have that reassurance as my brotherhood just around me just to be there for me every step of the way so awesome thank you all
So much for sharing your stories um I know there’s a lot of questions in the chat about various organizations or clubs that you know promote things like diversity and inclusion or even thinking of various clubs that are focused on cultural background or um you know things like that so are are y’all in
Invested in any of those you know clubs organizations or um what what sort of organizations exists on campus for for you all yeah I can take the first question um so so I’m part of the board of the Latino student Alliance so some background on me and my family is that
The majority of my family still resides in verac Cruz Mexico so um I’m AF Latino and a lot of my family um it’s been hard to kind of learn how to be with Latinos and black people because it’s kind of a mix so it’s kind of a different experience
So me and a couple other for Latinos are trying to make it’s an unofficial Club right now but we’re trying to make it official um but yeah i’ I’ve been a part of like the Latino student aliance where they host events like formals or just get togethers with other Latino students
Um as well as things like bico which is like think of it like Mexican tap dance which is really fun and some other like Latin dancing clubs that’s how I’ve been involved and got it to know more people my culture and my community yeah awesome
Um on campus I am part of the buffer hesper Scholars Program um so the way it works um they do we do a summer immersion program right before the beginning of freshman year so it’s a relatively small cohort it’s about 30 people a little bit less than 30 people
And we got to have like campus over summer like all to ourselves it’s like the best time of the year um because the days are so long we I got to take classes with people of like similar backgrounds it’s a um Organization for people of underrepresented backgrounds
On campus so you see a lot of first generation students you see uh Asian students you see Latino students you see black students and we all just kind of like come together we discuss where we come from uh what we expect to get from Notre Dame and just sort of like begin
To navigate Campus before the rest of the 2,000 people in coming class uh gets here in the fall and it’s such a love Lely Community we get to we do like every Friday we do like a movie night and this is not even part of the program
Anymore it’s just because we came like that close to each other it’s like we want to see each other weekly um so we do like movie Nights we do there’s also a formall we take all B formal um there’s like Halloween activities there’s a a retreat that we
Do a lot of um cultural organizations do like Retreats um at the beginning and in the middle of the school year so it’s nice to just know that there are people in like from your community that you can relate to um and yeah it’s just like
It’s a really warm community and I like love them so much they’re like I still talk to them like the people Michael like every day um I’m myself um I’m on and enjoying a lot of beret of clubs and activities here so first off not D allows for any
Club organization you can pretty much make up anything and there will be people to support you and you can kind of do anything you want so you know never stop believing if you want to make a club or anything you really can but I myself I’m the secretary of Ruda and
Ruda is an young African-American male Club it’s about 40 to 50 of us and we just gather every week really multiple times just to talk about things and we do multiple events we too have formal dances we have cookouts um we go bowling we go to basketball games football games
Basketb baseball games we go shopping together and we meet and we just talked about issues going on in our world that are affecting young African American males we’ve kind of talked about issues we do some things as well and it’s not always strictly you know we’re always doing some sometimes we’re really
Relaxing so on Fridays we’ll meet we’ll go in the room probably play some 2K people doing homework some people listen to music and it’s just a relaxing vibe zone just to provide that sense of community and belonging as well awesome so Gabrielle asked a question in the
Chat uh what are some of your favorite experiences in the dorms we’ll start with you JD um some of my favorite experiences in the dorm I would start off really football weekend football weekend that’s probably the best part um football is a big part at nor Dame and I
Say probably that Thursday everyone is just getting very hyped and so in beginning Football Season O August September a lot of fames will come out they have tailgates and with the dorms you meet so many people and so many people is just like opportunities everywhere and they just have so many
Different backgrounds so you know you all go to tailgates together you know before the game you all dress up you go play some football you all hang out um another form just how strong dorm is is just each and every dorm I know in South dining hall you have your own taable and
Basically you just kind of you know at the end of the day like every Friday my dor we wear green Blazers so if I go into South dining hall and you know I’m looking for somewhere to sit I can always look in the right and see a beret
Of just green blazes there and that just kind of like makes you feel just kind of warm that you at least know someone and you’re do that’s there but then also you know it goes beyond that you know when you’re picking classes a lot of upper
Class they love to reach out and help you in any way they’ll tell you classes Professor to take not to take or easy guides and courses to help guide you in the best way um in my dorm well most dorms do like a big little program um and if you
Don’t want to be part of it there’s like you can totally choose like the level of commitment that you want to have like with an upper classman but it’s really nice to know that you can just like especially during class registration it can be a little stressful it really
Doesn’t have to be it can just be stressful because you have like a 10-minute time slot and you really want to get the classes that you’re planning to have um but it’s nice to just like ask questions like hey hases anyone have like a recommendation like a good
Professor for uh I don’t know let’s say intermediate microeconomics or um who’s taking their first theology because we have to take two semesters of theology here at NRE Dame um what’s like a cool like theology class that you guys took any like recommendations stuff like that
It’s really nice to just like talk with the upper classman in the community also my first year I really miss her so much I got along pretty well with my ra which is their resident assistant um every Tuesday we have like section social so depending on the
Section you are in your dorm they will Al it’s like around 10 p.m at night this used to catch up with like what you’ve done in the week you usually have like something to eat a quick little snack my resident when she would do is she would
Have like oat milk Mondays so we just try like a new flavor of like oat milk like every Monday at 10 p.m. um but I’m also part of Cafe far far which goes to it’s like an inside joke it’s like Cafe like far far away because
It kind of sounds like parley um but what we do is a cafe that works in odd hours of the night um it’s open it’s only from 900 P P.M to 12:00 a.m. and it’s for those who want a like late night snack as you’re working homework
Or maybe you just want to hang out with your friends you go to The Farley basement for the very good price of $3 you can get whatever Moi combination you want or just a smoothie and I started working there last semester and I really like this because I get to talk with
Like all the girls in Farley that I maybe just don’t get to see as much because I’m not in my door maybe I’m in class maybe I’m like working in some club and I just catch up with them I like sometimes they bring sometimes I had a girl like bring in an entire
Brownie and tell me can you put this in the blender and like make up like a brownie like milkshake and I was like I could try and then like five other girls did the same thing um this is like really nice talk to all of them I feel
Like it’s Unique to Farley we have a lot of people from other dorms come in as well so yeah it’s a very like nice Harley tradition yeah my favorite so again my Haul is alni hul the dogs go dogs best best storm on campus um so one of my
Favorite Traditions is called quaning when it’s I I believe it’s every Friday um before football game you go outside South quad and you dress really silly there’s people in Speedos or there’s people in like chicken costumes um just the most craziest bizarre like costumes you could think of they go outside South
Quad and they just dance that’s I’ve met so many of the guys doing that too and honestly just watching it people line up to watch it around South quad it’s just a fun tradition it’s like really funny I think awesome thank You’ all so much for
Sharing um Hannah had a question in the chat about um you know what welcome events does Notre Dame have in the first few weeks of school for the incoming class so Gabby I know you talked about the immersion program um that you’re part of but can you also talk a little
Bit about like welcome week or maybe that process for you coming into Notre Dame yes so Notre Dame as soon as you get into campus they really make sure that your schedule is packed in the best way possible um from the moment you get here there is well Internationals get to
Move in two days earlier than the rest of the incoming class so you kind of have like a little bit more time for yourself and your family you get to walk around campus before like everyone else comes in which is very nice um but then during welcome weekend you do your first
Visit to The Grotto which is a very sort of intimate moment amongst like the first year students uh because like when you graduate you’ll also do like a last visit to The Grotto there’s a few instances in which you’re going to be with your entire like class and that’s
One of them there’s also the class picture which is very cool all the students walking into theine Stadium we are told to stand between some people wearing white shirts and you don’t know what shape you’re making but you know it’s going to be the class photo that later on they
Reveal um there’s also is it called well there’s welcome again what’s like the F we do Dom Fest Dom Fest yeah do Fest is an activity so they pretty much they give you a shirt that you wear like representing your Hall so you know that all the people that you’re with they’re
All freshmen and then there’s do Fest which is like around I think it starts at like 11:00 p.m. and it ends at like 2: a.m. um sometimes it’s held outdoor sometimes it’s inside of dunan student center in the duny ballroom which is very cool Ballroom in the seventh floor
Um and pretty much all you do is dance get to talk to people maybe if I don’t know you know like someone from your area that you like know he’s also coming to another day and you get to see them in person it’s a really really good time
And yeah usually like at the welcome weekend you got your Monday off and you start classes in Tuesday and yeah you have I’m trying to think what other activities are we doing weend I know they had a jumper in do fist so that was cool always have things
Yeah there’s a lot of free like food trucks as well oh yeah there’s always food so yeah that’s a really good time anything else want to add about W Gabby okay great so Elizabeth had another great question in the chat um so she would like to know why you all chose
Go day so we’ll start here with Jacob yeah so my story’s a little funny but I’ll give some background um so I came back I came I grew up in San California which is in Orange County it’s kind of underprivileged community um so a lot of the students there are first generation
Um uh and children of immigrants so really college is not something that’s it’s something that’s told to us but we don’t really know what it is or or how to get there so my high school years was trying to like figure out what college
Is how do I get there because I want to be better so I can better myself and provide for my family um yeah so I had no experience with any college so I knew nothing about college um got into this great scharge program it’s called Knack
If anybody from s is there uh definitely apply to Knack um they just teach you they help first generation and lowincome students understand how to apply to college which colleges to apply to and they help you with applying to colleges like financially and everything so yeah
That being said I I didn’t know anything about college so they told me I had to applied a um a a certain amount of private schools and I was kind of checking my list saying like Okay which school should I apply to now and uh ner
Dame was on that list and it was green and my favorite color was Green so I applied to the school got in and then I saw that it was a good school after researching so I was like oh maybe I’m G to do this school I was in between
Schools and I was like ultimately Notre Dame because they just they showed that they really care for me and they were going to take care of me here which has shown true while I’ve been here so yeah overall it’s just been a great experience a learning experience as well
So it’s been amazing being here yeah so um my sister just graduated this year from Notre Dame um she was also an economics major so that’s how I heard about the school um and when she was here she would tell me all about it like
Oh it’s such a good time like I’ve met like my friends here like they’re all amazing The Faculty everything um but she would always talk about the community more than anything and I know that it sounds kind of basic like description like oh it has such a
Good community and it’s like well yeah that’s what you expect from like the school that you’re potentially going to um but I didn’t really experience it till I applied to preol uh for any like 10th graders uh or 11th graders watching maybe not 11th graders I’m not sure but
If you gets a chance to do summer Scholars free college um or I think there’s also like an leadership program as well there’s like a few other like programs you can apply to it’s a good way to you know spend two weeks get to know the school uh get to know people
That are also passionate about the school that you’re going to um and I applied to do summer scholars in astronomy because at at the moment that I wanted to study Physics and I remember I was very excited to come here especially because it was in the middle of Co then they
Said that unfortunately it was not going to be held on campus but still I was like you know what it’s something that I want to get to know and even though it was online it was on Zoom like I had never felt like such a just Vibrant Community and in order like Translating
That into like Zoom I feel like it’s such like challenging thing to do and somehow they managed to do it regardless like it was during that immersion program well pre-ol that I met this girl called Jackie when um and it was it was only two weeks long and it was like
Mandatory Zoom meetings with like other like kids and when I tell you that we stayed in touch for an entire year and she’s from Oklahoma and I’m from Nicaragua so it’s not like we were we didn’t even know if we were going to meet in person or not um but we both
Knew we wanted to apply to another day we stayed in touch the entire time and now I’m taking two classes with her the semester which is like crazy for me to think like I met her during welcome weekend and it was like this can’t be real like I’ve been talking to you for
Like two years now online I’ve never seen you in person um but it was like that community and all the inside jokes that we made during that two week period and just coming back and like meeting all my friends that I also did pre-ol with it was like such a good time it’s
Truly the community that makes it it just goes above and beyond because when you’re applying to schools of course you’re going to consider like The Faculty you’re going to consider the classes that they offer but the community is something like I canot like be able to describe it like I can put
Into words like it can’t fit into like any rankings it just goes about and Beyond um for me personally throughout High School I really didn’t get Notre D much at all um com coming from Atlanta being in a metropolitan era um my family all went to history my family all went
To HBCU my mom went to Spellman my dad was from overseas my grandmother went to Howard grandfather FAMU so I was really destined to go to HBCU from the beginning but thankfully throughout my my high school experience they gave um my senior I think it was my junior when
I applied during the co era we had common app and they allow us to apply as many colleges as we wanted to so I was applying of course to the popular schools to you know some middle class schools schools that kind of fit my area that I was looking into and for Notre
Dame I kind of heard about it I was really scrolling on social media and I was just kind honestly it true story I was in the shower when I and it was kind of just like looking on social media and I was like oh it
Looks pretty like you know why not I I really wasn’t giving it much thought like and all hly I wasn’t thinking like I was thinking I was destined to go probably like to how my dream schools UCLA I was destined on that I was like
Not Dame like what is Notre Dame so I like I would apply just because you know easy application I thought you know and I went and submitted it and just come to find out a few months later I found that I got in and at first you know I really
Didn’t know much about it but I did my research I thought it was really good I thought out it was a really good school I was like dang and I had told my mom about it and just to see the face reaction when I told my mom I got other
Schools versus not D she was just completely shocked but that was just the beginning because immediately once I was accepted like Notre Dame they kept sending a bunch of stuff to my house a bunch of like they kept sending like emails they said posters like cards
T-shirts and I was like I would call home school like for practice I’m like damn like I have something from another Dame again like I’m like where’s the other stuff at and then I was kind of did more my more research and I kind of
Feel like at the end of the day I feel like if this is happening for a reasoning I feel like God did this for a reason that’s what I kind of thought so I was like you know I feel like he has a path for us and I feel like if they keep
Sending me this mail keep sending me emails and really want me to truly be up here I was like you know why not give a shot you know why not be that Difference Maker from back home you know not going to HC or going to the popular just go up
Here come up on a leite of faith and be up here and you know it’s turned out pretty great you know work in progress you know we’re still alive so awesome just a a small plug for social media if if you’ve never been to campus and you can’t make it to South
Bend we completely understand that’s why we have sessions like this virtually um but our social media team is awesome we have students who are basically taking over all of our social media pages and doing takeovers and showing you what it’s like through their eyes to be a
Notre Dame student so so I always talk about social media when I can because that’s kind of our way of showing you what South B what Notre Dame is all about um so you talked a little bit about living in a metropolitan area and then moving to South Bend so tell us a
Little bit about that transition what are some of your you know favorite things about South B maybe things you like to do off campus um we’ll go down the by the way as I said before um I’m from at I’m originally from Paris so Paris is already a big city and moving
From Paris to Atlanta at 13 now was pretty much on the same wavelength Atlanta was very vibey a lot of culture so going picking colleges so I know I kind of wanted to go to like a college that was like in the LA or Miami I’m
Glad that I didn’t very smart very so I was like in atanta I was like you know I’ve never heard of South B but they always say you’re about an hour away from Chicago so I was like you know what I was like okay but coming up here um I
Really thought honestly South was in the middle of nowhere it’s completely just cornfields it’s dead there’s nothing up here I never heard of it in all honesty that’s what I thought but then when I first came up here I was like this this actually stuff up here and it was like
This is actually very interesting to me but then once I formed that Brotherhood um like I said before they have the baseball game the South B Cub baseball game that’s really fun to go to um there’s a lot of food spots on C off campus that you can go to as well try
Different culture backgrounds and you can go to museum you can go to concerts but that’s just off campus but I really get to go off campus because I’m it’s a lot of stuff going on on campus so already in Fall you already know you have football season that’s guaranteed
Almost every other Saturday and that takes up a good amount of weekend and then we have basketball season starting don’t forget to mention we have soccer as well and then next semester with basketball continuing volleyball as well we have all these Sports and then once you get involved in clubs and activities
And you do other things you start to realize like you don’t have enough time to go off campus and it’s actually kind of good because like I know if I was in a setting and I was in say for instance at Los Angeles I always be like you know
I’ll go get caught up in the city my mom always told me you know keep your head on you know you’re not there really party you’re there to graduate and get and get your degree so I was like okay you know that’s true so but there
Honestly a lot of things and if worst G comes to scenario a few of my friends are we taking that trip to Chicago an hour ride hour drive train ride no more than $30 you go go see the Bears game the Bulls game sometimes go shop eat
Come right back a little weekend trip yeah awesome yeah that is very true um there is so much going on on campus that even if you think to yourself oh you know what I’m I’m thinking about going outside this weekend um out of Campus then you realize there’s like some event
Going on and it’s like oh you know what I might as well just stay and it just feels so comfortable um I remember when I first came here I thought campus was so big I oh my gosh I’ve gotten lost so many times and there’s still times where
I have to use Google Maps to like find out where I’m going um I don’t really have the best sense of direction but it’s I there’s so much to do in South B and right outside of Campus we have um Eddie Street where a lot of students
Will go especially on the weekends um usually like you know when it comes to like dining options you do have the dining hall sometimes it does happen to me that like the D Hall is like closed already uh it closes at 9:00 pm which gives you like a solid like amount of
Time to like get something to eat but sometimes it’s like you know what I’m gonna go get chipot and I just go I just get chip it’s just a short walk it’s such a short walk um and if not well Notre Dame in South Bend with your Notre
Dame ID you get to use like the bus services for free so if you ever want to go to the mall you want to get like some like a warm coat for winter or maybe you just want to go to Builder bear or you want to go to AMC Theaters and check out
The new movie uh you can always just take the bus it’s like so easy to use um and when it comes to going to Chicago it’s mostly I’ve done it a couple times um it’s very cheap you can take it train you can Uber there’s a lot of options
The train is like I think the ticket is like like $10 or something um and yeah I’ve done it like it’s usually for like longer breaks if you have like Easter break you have Thanksgiving break and you’re staying on campus and you have friends that are staying on campus as
Well um it’s just nice to go check out Chicago and all but at the end of the day you do feel very comfortable on campus in like the best way possible there’s so much going on the entire time um it’s back home it’s not like I came
From like a big city city um but it’s just nice to know that you know if you have like I don’t know like a free afternoon you can always go check out sometimes they do like little shows in like Duncan or like um in library lawn
You can sign up and like sing with your friends play the guitar um there’s also like comedy like shows going on campus with an improvising Club um there’s a lot of things going on yes literally what what they said because they covered everything but um
Yeah like this past um fall break I went to Chicago with my boys and it was a fun time there was so much to do um too much to do we didn’t have enough time I wanted to stay longer but they said no so he came back um but there’s so
Many things to do on campus like they said one of my favorite memories was well Fest like memories here at nor Dame during the weekend was being with my friends um there’s like secret gems in the South B community so we went to like a Mexican store and just picked up some
Some groceries and then decided to cook on campus just wanted to try cooking yeah it was one of my funest memories honestly there’s so many things to do I can’t even I can’t even choose one absolutely I know when I moved here from California to to be at Notre Dame to
Work here um I was you know scared I wasn’t going to have access to like the Filipino groceries that I had back home and lo and behold there’s a little Filipino market here in sou um so there’s one of everything which I really appreciate and I do like what you all
Said about just South B being just nestled in this little community and it’s it’s the perfect size for I think Notre game and I think that students don’t feel overwhelmed by a huge City but they’re close enough to Chicago that if you want to get a taste of it you
Totally can but then you leave Chicago where it is and you come back to your bubble here in souin and it’s absolutely perfect um one question that I did see come come up a lot was about finding balance as a student especially students coming from maybe first G backgrounds low-income backgrounds maybe they
They’re just scared about that transition from high school to college um so if one of you wants to take that question or if you all want to answer that question like finding balance at Notre Dame how was that transition for you yeah so I’m C I am a first
Generation student and going from high school to college is something I’ve found personally challenging and I think a lot of people find it challenging even if they’re not first generation only because the academics are more rigorous which is good because I’m actually learning and as you get like older you kind of like
Figure out your routine and how you want to study you learn better you learn way better study first of all yeah so um the professors the free tutoring um they’re just always avable so it’s like it’s of course challenging but I think it’s a good type of challenge where you grow as
A person as a student and in the future as a a a person in your career um yeah it’s just overall been a good experience I think yeah um I cannot emphasize enough the amount of resources there are on campus just for you to learn if you’re
In struggle in any class or maybe you just want to like learn a little bit more about some Niche topic um there’s so much for example I struggle sometimes with math and there’s a math help room which is open like pretty much like almost every day from like 300 P p.m. to
Like 9900 p.m. um where you could just just like go to the math department the building on campus and you could just like there’s like graduate students there’s Das where you can always like ask questions um I would say like coming from high school one of my favorite
Classes that I’ve had so far and one of my favorite professors um it was my seminar that I took we read it was 15 books per semester and in my school our assigned readings were like maybe like half a plate it was never like 15 like books per semester and it was the
Hardest class I’ve taken and when I tell you was my favorite class as well it was challenging in a way that I could just I was like Jacob says I was actually learning so much and another thing that you kind of find down here in college is
That you have to learn how to learn you have to learn what studying methods work best for you it’s very tempting when students tell you your friend group especially hey let’s go to hesper library uh we’re gonna do like a study session for philosophy and then you end
Up going on a ranch the entire three hours that you’re there in the table sometimes it can be productive for some others it just works best when you’re alone there’s a lot of rooms around campus that you can reserve if you need to have like that study like space for
You um there’s also study rooms inside of your Hall so if you don’t want to go out you can always just like take up like a study space in your hall um almost every building on campus has like at least like one study spot um it was just it was a little challenging
Um trying to balance oh another thing I actually I don’t know I feel like my schedule in high school I don’t know how I had the energy to wake up at 6:00 am. and to do extracurriculars and then do homework go to bed at 11: p.m when you
Comeing to college you’re GNA feel like you have a lot of time in your hands and it is because I mean the way your classes work yes you’re taking L classes but the way that you have to work through them you kind of have to learn
How to work for every class um I feel like when you go to high school the methods are like very generic that you can kind of apply to studying in every class but when you come here you kind of learn like okay maybe math is going to
Take up more time that my Fine Arts requirement or something like that so you just kind of like learn how to learn uh like I said earlier and if you need that extra help there’s always like a lot of people that can like help you especially the T they’re all so
Weling anything you want to add I okay these are all that’s all the good stuff um so I do just have one final question for each of you as we wrap up this session tonight um my last question for each of you is you know for all the
All the students the families the parents the Guardians who are watching tonight what advice for what advice do you have for each of them you know as they look to college maybe thinking about applying to today knowing what you know now what advice do you have the
Best advice I got um during my application process was literally believe in yourself and apply to every college that you want to apply to because some people they think well no I can’t get into this college because of this and that who cares just apply
That’s literally what I did in I I got into this really prestigious and amazing school I think taking risk and believing in yourself is one of the most important things you can do um because without risk you can’t grow um and then Al also being your your best Advocate because nobody’s going to
Advocate for your for you like you’re going to advocate for yourself so it’s about like knowing what you want and going for it yeah um my advice I would say I remember when I was in high school and I would hear it a lot I was like oh that
Doesn’t help at all but it’s so true when people tell you to be yourself and be genuine um the college application process you kind of realize that you learn about yourself more than you think you would it requires a lot of introspection so I would say just sort
Of find something that you’re passionate about and don’t be scared to kind of like try something that you’ve never done before because you don’t know if that’s going to be the thing that you’re actually like that you will love and that you want to pursue in the future so
You know if you’re passionate about debate then like show that passion showcase that passion show okay um I’m gonna or maybe there is no Debate Club in your school then like go ahead and like be that person that like opens it up and like you have like this amount of
Opportunities now for other students that could possibly be interested in debate and I know the debate is kind of generic I don’t know I’ve heard of so many Niche clubs if your passion is assembling rubic like cubes then go ahead and do that and like show besides
Showing that passion show what you can like get involved with your community get involved with your high school get involved with your neighbors um just it just helps you to like grow as a person and you learn more about yourself so yeah like Jacob said just pretty much
Like take risk I would say will like believe in yourself also remain calm everything’s going to work out at the end of the day um so yeah just like have faith I would say um my advice uh simple really just do it I feel like just do it because like it’s like
No risk equals no reward and I feel like it’s college and I really feel like this is this is your future that we’re kind of speaking about so you kind of first off do the research don’t you know IMM me like a lot of college campuses are
Pretty but there’s really more to that and it’s more like you know behind those doors it’s really your future that you’re really talking about this isn’t really high school anymore this is kind of grown up you know you’re getting into the real Workforce entering the real world so it’s like really just believe
In yourself like it doesn’t matter where you come from who you are like I’m from Atlanta I move from Paris I applied in shower never never would have thought that I would be sitting here and I’m sitting here today grateful thank for all the opportunities and it’s really
Just appli for really really what’s best for you do do what you at the end of day because it’s gonna be you here and kind of like I said do the research kind of talk around asking because if you don’t talk then people you don’t know who
Could really help you you know there’s so many people on this world you don’t know who who knows who who knows what they can get you there just kind of follow your passions if you believe in something just stand on it just stand on business and you know you know just got
Of apply every college you want to don’t let anything hold you back just you at the end of the day it’s your future awesome well thank you all so much for your time thank you all for joining us this evening from wherever you’re you’re phoning in from um you can find the
Recording of this on our website we have tons of other resources on our website as well if you can’t find what you’re looking for you can always give our office a call or send us an email we’re happy to help you out but we hope you
Have a great rest of your evening and have a good one take care everyone thank you so much
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