Untitled document How College Thus Far has Shaped My Beliefs I came into this course at the beginning of the semester with an existing set of beliefs that I gained through my life experiences thus far. Now, several weeks later, I have gained a deeper understanding of where my beliefs come from and with my new experiences I have gained new knowledge to add to my beliefs. My beliefs about the people around me mostly remain the same, but my beliefs about myself have changed. I believe that I grow by challenging myself, whether it is in school, socially, or in other areas of my life. I believe that I am made to learn, whether it is about academic subjects, new skills, about my community around me, or about people in my life. I believe that I am responsible for my own actions and how I respond to situations around me, even if I cannot control them. I believe that character is more important than accomplishments. I believe that I pursue truth by questioning things continually and re-assessing my thoughts and beliefs with each new experience I go through. Given that I have gone through so many new experiences recently, this comes with a lot of thinking. In week six, I looked into what has impacted me as a person before coming to college and how where I am from has shaped me. I think that many of my beliefs come from the people that I was surrounded with in my life in Michigan. My family, friends, and community all shaped my values and understanding of the world, as I wrote about in my “Where I’m From” poem (“The Victorian Port ‘City’” by me - Moreau FYE Week Six). I think that growing up in a small town in rural northern Michigan has given me a different experience than many people I’m now surrounded with at college, so it gives me a unique perspective. I am grateful for where I’m from, but it is also nice to see people from different backgrounds and see their perspectives and beliefs. This brings me to the topic of week week seven—identifying perspectives. Week seven dealt with how to identify your own perspectives and implicit biases. From this I learned that it is easier to combat bias and have a more worldly perspective when you surround yourself with people who may be different from you. From the TED talk “Danger of a Single Story” I gathered that I should surround myself with people that have different stories than my own and not just stick with people that have had all the same experiences as me (“Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Moreau FYE Week Seven). This is something that I have done since coming to college and it has confirmed my belief that I grow by challenging myself and expanding my horizon and my belief that I pursue truth by reevaluating my values after undergoing new experiences. I came to college searching for a sense of belonging in this community, which has not been entirely easy to find. Being a gateway, it seems that there is no one school I belong at, I do not fully belong at Holy Cross or at Notre Dame. Yet, I have found a sense of belonging among my fellow gateways. In week one of Moreau, I recognized that I needed to be vulnerable and put effort into my relationships in order to find a sense of belonging, and I have surprised myself by how well I have done that (“The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown - Moreau FYE Week One). I never had to go through much effort to make friends before, as I had grown up with the same 120 odd people in my grade since elementary school and knew them so well. However, I https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/assignments/30891?module_item_id=106174 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/assignments/30891?module_item_id=106174 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/modules/items/106195 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0&feature=youtu.be forced myself to be vulnerable as I believe that I grow through challenging myself. My experience with being vulnerable in friendships has confirmed my belief that I grow through challenges, as I have become better at making friends and also grown strong friendships. This relates well to what I learned in week four of Moreau, on the topic of searching for life-giving relationships. Following the listed warnings in “5 Signs You’re In a Toxic Friendship”, I was able to identify which people I wanted to be vulnerable with and pursue a deeper friendship. I did not want to put effort into relationships where the other person was not putting a fairly equal amount of effort back, were negative all the time, or people who did not really listen to me (“5 Signs You’re In a Toxic Friendship” by Olivia T. Taylor - Moreau FYE Week Four). I have invested into relationships with people who value me as a person and value some of the same things that I value. It was nice to find people that valued God the way I do. Coming from a public school, not all of my friends had a very active faith, and of the ones that did, none of them were Catholic. From the week three video “The Role of Faith in Our Story”, I recognized that faith has a big influence in my story, the story of Notre Dame, and the story of a lot of students around me (“The Role of Faith in Our Story”, Fr. Pete McCormick C.S.C. - Moreau FYE Week Three). A lot of my beliefs and values are impacted by my faith, and it is nice to be surrounded by a community that has a strong faith, and in turn, shares some of my values. Although I found it is good to surround myself with people with different experiences than me, it is nice to have people and a campus around me that shares my faith and values. I have found that the beliefs and values this campus was founded on are a lot of the ones I share. Week Five, on identifying narratives, was very interesting to me because I knew a fair amount about Notre Dame, but not having any family that has ever attended, I did not know the full narrative of its founding. Father Sorin’s letter was very interesting to me because I was able to learn what beliefs he had and how the University was founded upon the belief that students should be prepared to enter into the world should grow their faith and character while at school (“Fr. Sorin Letter to Bl. Basil Moreau'' - Moreau FYE Week Five). This is something I also believe is important in a University, and something that I wanted for myself, which is ultimately one of the main reasons I ended up at Notre Dame and not another school. I believed that Notre Dame complimented my beliefs and would help to challenge me in the ways I wanted in order to grow into the best version of myself. Since coming to Notre Dame, I have realized that I am made to learn, and I have learned a lot of new things in classes, new things about the world, new skills such as playing ultimate frisbee for the first time, and even new things about myself. Finally, this brings me to week two of Moreau—on searching for self knowledge. This was probably my favorite course material so far, and I really enjoyed this week. I specifically liked the TED talk, which talked about what kind of traits you want to be remembered for, and what the important things are in life (“Should You Live for your Resume or Your Eulogy” by David Brooks - Moreau FYE Week Two). It made me realize that I want to be remembered for my character and not my accomplishments, which has become a belief I now hold firmly and base many of my actions on. This belief has served me well so far at college, because even https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/modules/items/106103 https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/modules/items/106053 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o56woQDq3QrRkziT8eYrvYly5CQaP2Vb/view https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28317/modules/items/106009 though I still want to achieve many things, it helps me not to stress out too much when I don’t do as well as I wanted to on a math quiz, or that instead of worrying about getting a catch in my ultimate frisbee game I should focus on being positive and cheering on the rest of my team. This belief is one that is very different from before I came to college. I was worried about getting good grades and achieving as many things as possible to get to where I wanted to go. But now that I successfully made it to South Bend, I stopped and realized that all of those things I accomplished were not as important as the qualities I had gained on my journey, or the person that I have become. With my new experiences in college, I have been able to challenge and reevaluate my beliefs in order to figure out what truly matters to me in life.