What I have realized at Notre Dame.
I think that one of the most important things that I have asked myself since my time at Notre Dame is my own personal identity concerning my religious beliefs. All my life I have grown up in a religious family, and while I had attended public school, it was still normal for me to go to church every single weekend. Now that I am in college all by myself, it is up to me to decide everything regarding religion for myself. Something that has come of this is where I can connect my beliefs of the reasons for things happening in the world. There are many people in the world who believe that this hope and these ideas come from religious, who “firmly believed the Lord’s choicest blessings come through the crosses we bear out of love for him and love for others.” (“Hope - Holy Cross and Christian Education” by Fr. James B. King – Moreau FYE Week 12). This idea of connecting religious aspects to my life is something I have really thought about since I have come here. I am no longer required to go to mass by anyone, as I am not living with my parents anymore. It is completely up to me to choose whether or not religion is something that I will continue to follow or not. Understanding that it is now up to me to make these decisions is one of the largest areas of growth that I have experienced in my time here. 
Another thing that has really changed since I came to school here was my own view of my own responsibilities and work. I grew up in a situation where there were always very high expectations placed upon me, from parents and my school as well, going to a very competitive high school. Something that I feel like I experienced since I have come here is that pressure that I have felt to be perfect with everything regarding school has significantly decreased. While school is of course still important, the more I spend time here, the more I realize that it should not be the most important thing in my life at all times, like it was previously in my life. Julia Hogan explains this well in her article about these sorts of expectations, saying how “I’m going to let you in on a little secret: these expectations are arbitrary.” ("Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit” by Julia Hogan – Moreau FYE Week 9). People have always placed these arbitrary expectations on my throughout my life, always expecting me to meet them without fail. Now that I am by myself, and have spent some time living by myself, I start to realize how those expectations should instead by goals set by myself, ones which I think I can achieve, not ones that are set by other people. It is very nice to have that pressure removed from my life, and I feel like it has led me to grow as a more well-rounded person as a result. I have started doing activities not because I am forced to or required to, but instead because I simply enjoy them. I choose to do them on my own, which makes it much more enjoyable. 
Another big thing is the fact that I have now gotten to live in a completely different area, with completely different people than what I have experienced before. Growing up in the same place my entire life, I never got to see much of the experiences of those from outside of my area, because that was where I had been my entire life. Coming here, to Notre Dame, there are people coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, from all sorts of different places all over the world. Learning about these experiences gives me a different view of communities, as I have been in one main community my whole life. I have learned that “Community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received” ("Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community” by Parker J. Palmer – Moreau FYE Week 11). It is important to realize that being in one of these very diverse communities is helpful for personal growth, as it gives me the ability to see perspectives from people I may not have had the opportunity to see before, after growing up in the place I did. The value of the community has become clear to me through the fact that I know that what I have experienced here has changed me as a person and made me a different person, because of the fact that I have been able to experience a much different sense of community. 
I think something that has been revealed to me since coming here was the importance of making valuable relationships with other people. In high school, I was pretty introverted, so I tended to not care about spending time and doing things with other people. Coming here however, that completely changed. It became clear to me how important it is to spend time with other people in order to build valuable relationships and friendships. Coming here I have already made a lot of friends, something I struggled with a lot previously in my life. In addition, it has become clear how helpful it is to just have people that you can trust and rely on for when you need help with something in your life. It has become clear that “Love is the deepest human need. Each human being has a deep spiritual, psychological, emotional longing for love.” ("Wesley Theological Seminary 2012 Commencement Address" by Fr. John Jenkins – Moreau FYE Week 10). Fr. Jenkins says it pretty well, how I have realized that this fact is true. Love for me comes from the understanding that I have people who I have built close relationships with, and that I can rely on them if I must. The biggest change for me of all since coming to school was my realization of how crucial it is to make and maintain these relationships, as they make me a happier person overall.