When I chose Notre Dame, I knew that I was becoming part of American Catholic tradition. Praying at the grotto, the football team’s Mass before games, and chapels in every dorm are well-known, beautiful images of faith life at Our Lady’s University. Yet, in addition to the rich sacramental life, I have also sought out unique centers, institutes and student groups that have brought my faith to life.

I am majoring in economics and political science, with a minor in constitutional studies, and my classes have been rigorous and engaging. And yet, my intellectual formation continues long after classes have wrapped up for the day. I spend many evenings at lectures, events and dinners, discussing philosophy, the Church and political events, where I have been able to live out my Catholic worldview.

Although Notre Dame’s Catholic identity often seems to be up for debate in popular discourse, I have benefited from rich institutional and structural support for students who are seeking an authentic connection with their faith.

As a Sorin Fellow with the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, I have been a part of student formation focused on integrating theological and philosophic truths into daily experiences on campus. In addition to providing support for my explorations abroad in Germany and Rome with the Catholic Worldview Fellowship, the Sorin Fellows network has blessed me through relationships. When it comes to coordinating with my friends to attend the annual fall conference, which draws hundreds of Catholic thinkers and students to Notre Dame each November, or the Evangelium Vitae Mass and dinner, these large events often feel more like celebrations.

Smaller interactions facilitated by the center also bring me towards the truth. On college campuses, it is easy to get overwhelmed with classes or fall prey to distraction, but the de Nicola Center brings me towards the higher, metaphysical truths of education. It leads me to ask myself: “What am I doing here at Notre Dame?” I have been able to conclude that I am seeking the truth.

Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center, shared that their commitment to the Catholic identity of Notre Dame is also a “commitment to excellence, connected with this formation of all facets of human life. We start at the beginning; it’s full human flourishing. It’s the full meaning of human life.” This search for the full meaning of human life brought me to the importance of family life away from home. In the unique Sorin Fellows Supper Club program, groups of students can dine in a professor’s home with their family.

I have rushed each semester to fill out forms listing free evenings and preferences. I have been blessed to truly admire those I learn from in the classroom, especially after meeting their children (and pets). From dinner with a famous architecture professor with my friends and my architecture-student older brother, to sharing desserts with classmates from my economics course and being able to explore our professor’s home library, the program has gifted me with memories and conversations that I could not have had anywhere else.

The lecture series “A Book That Changed my Life,” where professors speak on a work that has deeply impacted them, has reignited my excitement for reading outside of course materials.

Thanks to these lectures, I discovered a favorite book, Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy, a beautiful autobiography that tells the story of love through the suffering of the death of his wife, and which has helped me confront loss in my own life.

I have always been curious about political theory and the underlying assumptions we make in governance. I knew that my faith had to form a central part of my political vision. The Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government (CCCG) has enacted the commitment of Blessed Basil Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross: “While we prepare useful citizens for society, we shall likewise to our utmost to prepare citizens for heaven.”

Donald Stelluto, co-director of the CCCG, emphasizes that Catholic universities are precisely the right places to be exploring questions of political life. “We’re paying attention not just to the current political spectrum, the current political environment. We’re also looking at those things that have been transcendent over time.”

The search for this transcendent truth has come to life in my constitutional studies. I have taken classes taught by District Judge Amul Thapar, where the only set agenda is to question and discuss laws and judicial rulings on religious freedom. I have spent an entire semester reading and discussing Plato’s Republic and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, in search of an answer as to whether democracy inculcates virtue.

The CCCG’s lectures, where I have listened to John Mearsheimer on realism, John Yoo on recent high-profile litigation and Harvey Mansfield on Tocqueville, later spark discussion among my friends. Stelluto identified that there is an overwhelming energy among engaged students at Notre Dame for discussing the truth in community: “It’s palpable around us. That optimism and the ability to continue to use our gifts for the good and do good around us, do good to other people, shapes the way that we learn to. We're not just cataloging information. We want to know how to use information for the next step, which is to implement it for something better.”

Finding enriching and authentically Catholic centers on campus is a sure way to remain engaged with the higher aims of education and avoid the risk of getting stuck in the daily routine of classes and socialization. Clubs and student groups have also offered me similar paths towards community, particularly the student newspaper I am a part of, The Irish Rover, which is dedicated to upholding the Catholic character of Our Lady’s University.

As students embark on their college journeys, it is worthwhile to investigate what internal structures and communities are flourishing on campus. The Catholic University of America’s Institute for Human Ecology, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Center for Catholic Studies, Benedictine College’s Center for Constitutional Liberty, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston’s Nesti Center for Faith and Culture are creating these kinds of exciting communities, centered on the faith. For students who are serious about their education, connections with institutes, professors and fellow classmates can change their life! I know they have enriched mine.