David Michael Jefferson  
December 2, 2021
Moreau First-Year Experience 
Professor Hnatusko
How I Respond 

	The prompt of this paper is ‘What have I encountered and how will I respond’? This semester, Moreau’s First-Year Experience has allowed other first-year students and me the ability to deepen our self-knowledge as it relates to our personal development and enter a new chapter of our lives as college students. However, even though the class prompted this self-knowledge and development, it has guided us and given students the tools to continue that in the future. 
	Weekly classes, discussions, and prompts have helped students deeply think about experiences and their responses to incidents. When I say experiences, I don’t mean experiences like jumping off a cliff or sky diving, but I mean anything that can help students develop and grow. In week 9, I looked at the question of how to combat setting high goals with the risk of not meeting them? In the text "Why Letting Go of Expectations is a Freeing Habit" (Julia Hogan, Grotto), Links to an external site, the author says, “Those expectations are the bars we set for ourselves. When we meet (or surpass) them, we feel worthy. If we don’t meet those expectations, we feel like the exact opposite — that we aren’t good enough” (Moreau week 9). This resonated with me, and sometimes, the worst criticism you can receive is from yourself. Yes, self-appreciation and love are great things, but when you don’t meet the expectations you set for yourself, it can be a horrible experience. Before coming to Notre Dame, I battled with keeping up with the academics and with all the other smart kids who go here. I set high goals for myself in the classroom, so I am pretty hard on myself when I don’t reach those goals. From this experience, I learned that putting pressure on myself did not help me but hurt my confidence and my ability to perform. 
	In week 10, I looked at what type of community challenges Notre Dame faces and how could teachers help out? Students at Notre Dame are very independent but encounter most of the same things. In the Quote Question Comment assignment for this week, we were asked to not only look at challenges Notre Dame faces as a community but we were asked to look back on our communities. Personally, being from a big city like DC, lots of different challenges pop up at other times. One example of a problem is the rapid gentrification that is happening in the town. The heart of DC has usually been pretty diverse, but the introduction of high-end shops and pricy housing has driven minorities to surround cities like PG county or Gaithersburg. More broadly, a powerful quote from this section is,  “Conviction. It is indispensable to every good deed. It defies the forces of inertia — the prevailing winds and currents that fight to keep everything the way it is, or worse. Without conviction, there would be no hope.” ( by Rev Jenkins, Week 10 Moreau). 
	This directly related to what we talked about in week 11 when we were posed with the question of How to strengthen bonds in communities, especially in the midst of conflict or dissimilarity? In return, this left me with the question of how should I branch out and make new connections in the community? While reading the text, I stumbled across the quote, “community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received” (by Parker J Palmer, Moreau week 11). This is a compelling quote with a lot of truth and meaning. Yes, everyone is part of some type of community, whether they realize it or not. But to be a contributing member to that community, you have to do extra, it is not just given to everyone. Personally, I have encountered feeling like I don’t belong in my community back home, but when I became a contributing member of the community, it made me feel better about myself and closer to the community. 
	Lastly, we looked at encountering hope. The reading says,  “This means that while their spirit can be directed to eternal objects, thor bodies, passions and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change” (Monroe week 12, A Brief Introduction to The Screwtape Letters).  Humans aren’t made up of just flesh and blood, but we have a soul that is capable of emotions and values like hope. While our body is constantly changing and growing, so does our soul. Personally, the question of how to live and grow in hope is simply answered in the question. One can live and grow through hope. I believe that hope turns into confidence, which allows one to grow and do things they want to do or were too scared to do. You can increase your expectancy by believing in yourself and trusting that nothing is impossible. Personally, I think that I am a very hopeful person, and that allows me to set future goals for myself. Sometimes these goals are unreachable because of how optimistic I am, but that will enable me to push myself until I can anymore, or till I’m close to achieving that goal. 
	Even though I have only been here a few months, my experience at Notre Dame has affected me and is already shaping me into a better person. I feel this the most in my ability to make new friends and encounter new people. Since I play baseball, practice, lifts, and scrimmages dominate my time. This would leave me vulnerable to possibly not making connections with kids in my dorm or students that aren’t on my team. But at Notre Dame and in Moreau’s First Year Experience, we learned the importance of branching out and making connections with everyone. This is how I responded to the problem. I used skills and tactics that I learned to help expand my friend circle, which has benefited me as I value my connections in college.