4/27/2022 Knowledge is Power Earlier in the semester I stated that my mission statement was going to be that I was going to do anything I could to acquire as much knowledge as possible. While I do not think that this single statement will be able to sum up every single thing that I want to do in my life or dictate exactly how I am going to act in every single setting, I still think that it will serve as a good mission statement for me. Especially for the next three years at least, after I graduate, I may choose to change my direction to an extent, but that time is still rather far off. I came to the conclusion that this should act as my mission statement because after I lot of thought I found that gaining knowledge is one of the few things that I always enjoy. I do not really have many other things that I could classify as hobbies, so I have started thinking that pursuing this goal could serve as a hobby of sorts. Of course, I would not seek to simply gain knowledge without at least attempting to put it to good use throughout my life by using it to try and solve the problems I see. To help people with their problems I would likely have to acquire the knowledge of how they live quite directly exactly how Steve Reifenberg describes when he talks about the time he spent trying to help the less fortunate in poorer countries but ended being helped by them (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hZbSdVImfn2hZDqMrdL96dZCNOtHuf6C-lg3sH- Rs30/edit?usp=sharing by Steve Reifenberg, Moreau FYE Week 9). This concept as my mission also is what led me to choose my major here at Notre Dame. I found that my chosen major of Biochemistry gives a unique insight into the mechanisms by which living beings operate and how the world around all living beings works. It is a major that also confers a lot of information that could potentially be used to help other people someday. However, I do not just want to gain academic knowledge, even though it is generally the most useful, I also want to try and acquire knowledge at a more societal level. What I mean by that is trying to gain knowledge to get an insight as to how the people in our society function at an individual level and how that affects society as a whole. To do this I try to do what Dr. Paul Blaschko recommends and avoid echo chambers; I do this by trying to find places that involve a mixing of different ends of political and social spectrum, or, if that is not available, I seek out places that represent the two different ends of the spectrum to compare the two and try and understand how each functions separately from each other (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaIVxQcqnLs&t=1s&ab_channel=ThinkND by Dr. Paul Blaschko, Moreau FYE Week 11). So far what I have learned from doing this sort of thing is that every single one of us has inconsistent ideologies, or we at least choose to ignore certain aspects of the things we support, but that is not inherently a bad thing if we looked at everything with such an extreme degree of nuance, I doubt anything would get done because there are negative aspects to everything. As I mentioned before, I do not want to be idle with any knowledge I have acquired, while learning for its own sake is good, I still would like to try and find practical applications for anything that I have learned. There are countless ideas on things we could do to improve this world we live in as demonstrate by the wealth of ideas that MSCA Symposium gives, and those are only ideas that have been generated at Notre Dame there could be countless more all over the world (https://provost.nd.edu/about/provosts-initiatives/moment-to-see-courage-to-act/msca- symposium/#summaries, By Notre Dame, Moreau FYE Week 12). All of these projects require all types of knowledge to pull off, technical knowledge to design and create new things, logistical knowledge to successfully implement these ideas, and social knowledge of how to get people to participate in these ideas. I hope to one day have enough knowledge in various subjects to actually be able to significantly help ideas like these to come to fruitions, be it through technical knowledge or knowledge that can help https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hZbSdVImfn2hZDqMrdL96dZCNOtHuf6C-lg3sH-Rs30/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hZbSdVImfn2hZDqMrdL96dZCNOtHuf6C-lg3sH-Rs30/edit?usp=sharing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaIVxQcqnLs&t=1s&ab_channel=ThinkND https://provost.nd.edu/about/provosts-initiatives/moment-to-see-courage-to-act/msca-symposium/#summaries https://provost.nd.edu/about/provosts-initiatives/moment-to-see-courage-to-act/msca-symposium/#summaries these ideas become reality through some other mechanism. Of course, I want to help every type of person that I can with any knowledge I have gained. Just like the spirit of inclusion at Notre Dame, I would want to help everyone that I possibly could no matter where the come from or who they are (https://dulac.nd.edu/university-mission-and-vision/spirit-of-inclusion/ by Notre Dame, Moreau FYE Week 10). I realize that my personal mission statement may differ somewhat from a lot of other people’s mission statements, but in truth I have never really had any super defined goal of ideal that I have been striving towards in my life. My plans for the future have always simply been “get into a good college”, “get a well-paying job”, etc. so I had goals but nothing explicitly defined, more just ideas that I wanted to get to. So, far I have been fortunate enough to be able to achieve my vague goals, but I cannot imagine that that will always be the case and as such I would like to be able to set a somewhat tangible and defined goal. I have found that I do enjoy learning about just about anything, as such I figured that this could make for a good goal and mission statement for the time being at least until I find something a little more concrete to make my goal. If in pursuing my current goal I do acquire enough knowledge that I can actually make somewhat of a difference and help some people then all the better. For now this will remain as my mission statement but I hope that some day I will be able to change my mission to something more specific or defined so that I can have an actual goal to strive for rather than just some far away ideal. https://dulac.nd.edu/university-mission-and-vision/spirit-of-inclusion/