Moreau Capstone Integration

April 29, 2022
Living a Life Well Lived
I will pursue a life well lived by practicing the good methods of self-reflection we’ve learned in class and comparing my present to the future that I want. Without guidance reflection is wasted, as “thinking about ourselves isn’t necessarily correlated with knowing ourselves” (Moreau week 6 – “the right way to be introspective”- Tasha Eurich) As the present is inherently changing, and my future goals may change over time, only through repeated comparison can I be sure that I’m on track. 
	As of right now my personal mission is to give back to the world in the ways that It has given to me. I will seek to understand, both academically and interpersonally, as this will enable me to succeed and help others.
I will do my best to foster mutual respect. Only by respecting others can one deserve to be respected, and thus be an upstanding member of the community.
Every day will be a new opportunity, both to give and receive. Through respect and offers to help I will seize opportunities to grow as a person and as the member of the community that I want to be. I will be responsible at work and at home.
My children will hopefully grow up as academically successful as I was, though I won’t hold them to that same standard if it’s not for them, and I don’t intend to even tell them how I did in school if they don’t ask. I hope to foster a love of learning early in life that will carry them through their careers both academic and in the work force.
My family life will hopefully be rich with experiences shared in my off hours from work. I hope that even if I cannot be at home all of the time, I will at least leave my children with good memories of time spent with me. If they’re anything like me they’ll also value alone time, and I won’t hesitate to grant it to them if they want it.
At work I will be responsible for results in whatever department of whatever company I am in. I intend to work quickly but safely in order to deliver engineering solutions that can be implemented quickly, allowing me to move on to the next problem on my list.
I will value my personal time above my working hours, and should a company be overbearing with their need of my time I will look for work somewhere else. While engineering jobs are by nature strenuous, there’s always another company to work at that may value my time as highly as I do, and I will keep an open mind for career development.
My mission statement may change from the present, As I try to answer” What gives you Joy? What is the source of your joy?” (Moreau week 3 – “Three Key Questions” – Fr. Michael Himes  but in general by keeping one eye on the future and one on the past I hope to ensure the best for both times. In the following three years This will translate in several ways as follows.
In my sophomore year of college I intend to join more student activists group so that I might help “promote a society founded on justice and love, in which all persons possess inherent dignity “ (Moreau week 10 – “The Spirit of Inclusion at Notre Dame” – du lac: A Guide to Student Life, University of Notre Dame). By helping out where I can, I will be better able to return the good that has been done unto me by passing it forward to someone else. In so doing I hope to work against “networks of privilege, prejudice and power so commonplace that often neither oppressors nor victims are aware of them”(Moreau week 12 – “Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross”) As Pope Francis said “we can only build the future by standing together, including everyone.”(week 7 Moreau – “why the only future worth building includes everyone” – Pope Francis). I will also do my best to continue succeeding academically, as a high grade point average is an important part of demonstrating my value on a resume for internships. I hope in my service and hard work in school I can build a better character and by that virtue a better resume. While this seems to be extremely work focused I would argue that bettering oneself goes hand in hand with being more valuable in the eyes of the capitalist machine. In an era where companies can access someone’s entire history I think it’s important to demonstrate the better parts of myself where I can, and in doing so reinforce good behavior.
Later in sophomore year I intend to be a meaningful member of the Notre Dame Rocketry team. While I was certainly a member this year, I lacked the skills required to properly design or build parts, and I didn’t necessarily see value in spending my club time writing safety reports in the range of hundreds of pages. I believe this club will be more of a personal development for skills that I wish to have. Working with teams and learning how to successfully implement ideas while incorporating advice, feedback, and general input from others is something I struggle with, so hopefully I will be able to better learn how to do these things in the coming years.
In Junior year I hope to continue the good habits that I began in my prior years of schooling, but with certain additional steps towards success that may or may not pan out. My first move will be looking for on campus research to further my knowledge in the field of aerospace engineering. Despite starting the search at a reasonable time, I know there are limited research spots and that I might not like any open ones, so I will be open to other avenues of professional development. At this point I will also hope to be a core member of the marching band, as I will be old enough and don’t mind coming out a few days earlier. I enjoy leadership positions because I like to ensure that things are being run “right”, though I can acknowledge that it’s “right” by my definition, and I have in fact been wrong about what is “right” in the past.
At the end of junior year I intend to push for several leadership positions in the clubs that I’ll be in. I’ll be a four year member of band, rocketry team, and irishsat. Of these three I believe I will push for leadership in band primarily, as I feel like I am most qualified for that position, and I don’t see myself enjoying the other two posts as much as I would being a leader in the band. While this is the worst of the three for resume, I believe as part of my mission that I should prioritize personal values over resume values.. From a leadership position I hope to better the activities I’m in through good judgement and consideration of peer opinions. I know to avoid an echo chamber, “a social structure from which relevant voices have been actively discredited” (Moreau week 11 – “How to avoid an Echo Chamber” – 0:48, Dr. Paul Blaschko)
In senior year I hope to put together all of the skills I have learned at Notre Dame to prepare myself to be a functional adult post college. The year will be filled mainly with applications for internships and the job search for after college. As I progress after college, it’ll be important to remember “There are many details and decisions to make and it requires a lot of exploration and research.  It’s not a one-step process.”(Moreau week 4 – “Navigating your career journey” – Meruelo Family Center for Career Development) In applying all of my skills I hope to fully realize my potential as a person.
I believe that the hardest parts of my journey will be the moments where the easier path is the less righteous one. It’s important to know which direction is the right one, and the allure of an easier option is certainly tempting. If, for example, it’s easier to ignore my responsibilities as a group captain in any club, it’s obviously important that I don’t ignore said responsibilities. Further, it may be difficult to keep up my goal grade point average as I progress into harder and harder engineering courses. Choosing to study over relax may be hard, but it is obviously going to become a necessity as time goes on. In practicing these self evaluation methods, and through the path laid out above, I hope to live a life well-lived by my own definition.