The University of Notre Dame

Date: Oct 07 2004
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
Notre Dame is a strange place. I was quite miserable my first year there. If you don't like football (either watching or playing), don't care to watch ESPN all day long, you will feel pretty alienated in terms of social interaction. Everyone is also on this huge 'social service' kick - they have this thing called 'Christmas in April', where all the ND kids descend on the largely African-American neighborhood which surrounds the campus and do all sorts of odd jobs. I suppose in one way it is nice, but I have always felt the hypocrisy in all of it which just permeates the entire place - we go and get a little dirty, then shuffle back to our picture-perfect campus, feeling like we really did something for the world, all the while enjoying the priveledges of a 30K per year education. Or how about dorm mass, on Sunday evenings, where you see the same guy who puked off his bed while making (sloppy) love to some equally drunk nymphet, taking holy communion in a dignified and solemn way. Did I mention that we are supposed to have some of the nation's smartest kids, yet there are plenty of students there (read: athletes) who barely go to class. There are plenty of double-standards and double-speak at ND.

The sexual repression at Notre Dame is amazing. Interaction between the sexes, at least when it comes to the dorm scene, is completely unnatural. Strangely though, it seems to work for a lot of people. Some of them, I guess, are not quite ready to grow up. I could never understand why a 21-year old would permit someone to tell him/her when they could have visitors of the opposite sex in their rooms. Notre Dame is home away from home, for those who left home though are not quite ready to deal with the reality of living on their own.

Eventually you find your people amidst the crowd of football fans and the Abercrombie & Fitch sweters, but sometimes that can take a while. Of course if your people are the football fans, your time here will be a breeze.

Overall, though, my experience at Notre Dame was incredibly positive, excluding the social part. At Notre Dame, you can do pretty much anything you want to do. The world, for those incredibly short four years, lies within reach. Seriously. Amazing classes with people (both students and professors) who really care about the truth, opportunities to get to really know the world (you would not believe how many people will pay YOU to go somewhere and discover the world), and quite a fun place to go to school (in terms of - yes! - parties), if you ever need a break from the books. I wouldn't recommend it as a place to necessarily question Catholic values or find yourself (if finding yourself entails questioning official dogma), but for the education and the experience, there is nothing like it. I left a completely different person after my time at ND, and although a lot of that time was not exactly pleasant, I am better for it.