The University of Notre Dame

Date: Mar 23 2004
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
The vast majority of students that attend this school have very conservative Catholic backgrounds and few have ever been exposed to other ideas and lifestyles. Therefore, many current students are already foreclosed to accepting, or even entertaining, these other viewpoints. The university itself also struggles with the same situation. It wishes to display both a Catholic nature as well as a “diverse” student body in an attempt to sustain its extremely valuable image. Unlike other schools though, the university seeks only ethnic and racial diversity among Catholics. I suppose Notre Dame must place a priority upon Catholics to retain such a religious feeling about the university, but the president of the university has in fact stated that the university has no real interest in diversifying in a religious and philosophical sense because he believes lack of diversity in these areas are not necessarily bad things.

The university tends to employ profit driven decision making in regards to issues of religion and diversity. In some circumstances, the university acts in favor of diversity. Recently the Vagina Monologues as well as the Queer Film Festival took place on campus. These events certainly were not supported by the university, but the school conveniently turned a blind eye since this past year it was voted the least accepting of alternative ideas and lifestyles. The ranking terribly hurt the school’s precious image as one of the nation’s leading universities. In other circumstances, the university acts in favor of Catholicism. Appeals to traditional Catholic ideals play a key role in maintaining Notre Dame’s Catholic nature as well as appeasing the alumni who are quick to withhold funds if the university does something that they do not like. The university spends great amounts of time with this image-conscious approach meant to sell this

theme park for Catholics.

Overall, the school successfully creates an atmosphere lacking free flow of new ideas and openness to new experiences.

Academically speaking, Notre Dame does not offer anything impressive, although students will have some access to well-known professors. In terms of social life, South Bend offers little and most students would agree that if Notre Dame had a better location it’d be a much more enjoyable school. Social life here is centered around athletic events and drinking at parties both in the single-sex dorms and at off campus houses.