Microsoft Word - Soza Integration Four.docx Soza 1 Fr. Kevin Sandberg Moreau FYE, Section 121 29 April 2022 Recognizing the Value of a Notre Dame Education Throughout this semester and this school year, I feel that I have grown as an individual both inside and outside the classroom allowing me to recognize my capacity for and drive to be a leader. As I mentioned in Week 13’s reflection, Annie Dillard’s metaphor comparing a mountain to a new frontier can be applied to a college freshman’s experiences at the end of one school year (Week 13 Reflection). Looking out over the mountain now, I see a very different outlook than what I saw when I stepped foot on campus in August. I have pursued new extracurricular activities, formed strong friendships, and grown deeper in my faith. These opportunities have allowed me to recognize my drive for creating inspiring change as a leader. By getting involved in the Notre Dame community, having good mentors, and forming strong friendships, I have been able to discover this drive for leadership within me. This semester, I have been adamant about taking advantage of every opportunity to exhibit leadership and take on responsibilities for the benefit of others. One of the reasons that I felt called to pursue these opportunities is because I feel “at home” while on campus and recognize the value of the Notre Dame community. My feelings greatly contrast with the problems William Deresiewicz claims are spreading throughout college campuses across the nation. In the reading for Week 1’s reflection, Deresiewicz explains college students, today, are always focused on creating an advantage in their future prospects—job applications, graduate school applications, etc. (Deresiewicz, 2014). This attitude has caused great unhappiness and Soza 2 despair because people are not acting out of a genuine interest in a given activity, rather individuals are more concerned with materialism. While I do sometimes act in this way, I have felt called this semester to use my talents for the benefit of others in the Knights of Columbus Council 1477 here on campus, going against the culture Deresiewicz discusses. This week, I was elected to be the outside guard for the next academic year meaning I will be involved in coordinating the council’s outreach with outside organizations. As I reflected on the readings from this semester, I was struck by Gustavo Gutierrez’s comments on solidarity: “The goal should be that those who have no voice today will have voice and will be heard” (Reifenberg, 2008). I hope that over this next school year, I can use my talents to be a successful accompagnateur by abiding by Gutierrez’s call to action: “To accompany is to help the person take their own destiny in their hands and allow that their voice is heard” (Reifenberg, 2008). Gutierrez’s commentary was interspersed within Steve Reifenberg’s broader discussion of accompaniment. While I am excited to be involved in the council’s leadership, there are also some elements of optimism and pessimism that pervade through my mind. However, as I discussed in my reflection for Week 10, “the commitment to lifelong learning allows one to evade these two camps and come to see both the positives and negatives in a given situation, creating a better chance for change” (Week 10 Reflection). I hope that I can demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning in my actions over the course of the next year. I also hope that this commitment to lifelong learning can help assuage the difficulties of leadership: “As a leader, I often find it difficult to analyze a situation and develop a solution to a problem all by myself; consequently, I find Deresiewicz’s commentary to not only be relevant but also correct. If I want to make changes and take action in an organization, I need to have someone to confide in” Soza 3 (Week 7 Reflection). Having strong mentors has allowed me to develop my passion for lifelong learning, and having good friends has allowed me to become a better leader. While I may have had these desires to improve myself and become a successful leader within my community, I realized during the process of seeking these leadership opportunities that having good mentors is essential to my success as a person both inside and outside the classroom. Sharon Daloz Parks observes mentors are essential for aiding people on their journeys by allowing people to come in touch with reality: “Indeed, good mentors help to anchor the promise of the future. As young adults are beginning to think critically about self and world, mentors give them crucial forms of recognition, support, and challenge” (Parks, 2000). This support can cause a person to change his course of action or continue along the same planned-out path. In Week 3’s reflection, I disagreed with Fr. Himes’s call to remain in one’s community when pursuing a vocation: “[I]ndividuals can be called to pursue their passions in other territories. More and more individuals are leaving their hometowns to pursue opportunities in other cities, states, and countries. These opportunities should still be considered part of one’s vocation” (Week 3 Reflection). I no longer agree with this opinion I expressed 12 weeks ago. My opinion changed because of Professor Patrick Deneen’s lecture on Wendell Berry’s call for agrarianism in my Liberalism and Conservatism class. Prof. Deneen argued communities are collapsing because there no longer exists a desire to remain in one’s community. If this trend continues, communities are guaranteed to collapse. This rhetoric caused me to change my opinion because I want to ensure the communities and tradition are respected. My opinions about a topic also changed when we discussed the power of student athletes. Before watching Howard Bryant’s talk, I was highly skeptical toward athlete protests; however, I came to recognize the power of student-athletes’ power: “I was fascinated by Bryant’s argument that college athletes Soza 4 could shut down the entire industry in a day if the athletes all decided to band together and support one another” (Week 11 Reflection). I came to see the validity of Bryant’s argument by talking with one of my friends who is a student-athlete at a different school. He discussed with me how his whole team shaved their heads to raise money for cancer research. Through talking with him, I came recognize how student athletes can positively affect the world through their actions. Outside of the classroom, my rector has been extremely valuable in helping me pursue transformative leadership. My rector recognized my commitment to being involved in our dorm masses and dorm community and asked me to take on more leadership responsibilities in the dorm this year and next year. He wants me to be involved as the leader of our liturgical ministries in the dorm and the grill team leader for our signature event, GameWatch. Seeing that my rector recognizes my drive for leadership has been good for my psyche and has compelled me to continue seeking leadership opportunities. In addition to a drive to seek leadership positions and having good mentors to lead me in the right direction, I have also benefitted from having good friends, including ones from back home and others I have met during my freshman year. As Fr. Michael Himes discussed, surrounding oneself with a good group of friends is necessary to recognize one’s capacity for transformative leadership: “The fostering of a community of friends who can be honest with us and whom we can genuinely hear, before whom and with whom we can be open and humble. That circle of friends is crucial to vocational discernment” (Himes). Often, individuals can doubt their own skills at a given task or believe they are not worthy of pursuing a career in that field. It is the job of their friends to lead them back to reality, allowing a recognition of talent (Week 4 Reflection). This semester, I have grown closer with a friend of mine since kindergarten. Although he attends a different school, we have made the effort this semester, especially since Soza 5 the start of Lent, to talk with one another once a week and just catch up. When I am having a bad week or doubting myself, I turn to this friend because he knows me so well. This friendship has been so beneficial for me because this friend allows me to move forward instead of fixating like Dr. Eurich suggests: “Asking “why?” in one study appeared to cause the participants to fixate on their problems instead of moving forward” (Eurich, 2017). As I move forward, I now recognize that I must be willing to ask, “What am I going to do to change?” if I want to become the best version of myself that I can become. Furthermore, the rekindling of this friendship has allowed to become wiser because this friend has allowed me recognize that I do not know everything and that’s perfectly fine. This realization has allowed me to “be more open about a given scenario, preventing him from falling into existing biases. A mark of wisdom is the absence of acting on implicit biases and stereotypes” (Week 12 Reflection). By reflecting on the pursuit of wisdom, I have thought greatly about the value of introspection. This friendship that I have strengthened this semester has allowed me to review how I view introspection: “Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things--to acknowledge things to yourself--that you otherwise can't” (Deresiewicz, 2009). Without the strengthening of this old friendship, I do not believe the happiness I experience now would have been completely possible. A Notre Dame education is different from every other university in the country not because Notre Dame has instituted a different curriculum or has different programs for study. Instead, a Notre Dame education is different because Notre Dame combines great people and faith. This is different from other Catholic universities because Notre Dame is uniquely Soza 6 collaborative and tight-knit community. These characteristics allow someone to recognize their full potential and to paraphrase Mendoza’s motto, “Grow the good in the world.”