Notre Dame Spanish Major

In general I think the stereotypes are that Notre Dame students are rich, stuck up, and smart. The stereotype about the University itself is that we care a lot about football and that it is an academically challenging school and it is diffficult to get in.

Not all of them. They might apply to some students, but stereotypes in general do not necessarily apply to everyone. I would say that everyone who goes to Notre Dame is fairly intelligent; you have to be in order to be accepted. However, not everyone comes from money. I have friends who come from middle class blue collar families, and that´s totally cool. The people I know and am friends with are not snobby or pretentious. However, stereotypes begin based on some truth, and there are those students at Notre Dame who do come from incredibly wealthy families and who are a bit snobby. In general though, I find it difficult to say that these stereotypes are accurate because it is a generalization that does not apply to many of the students at Notre Dame.

I really love Notre Dame. I love the size of the school: it´s not too big that you feel completely lost in the crowd, but it´s not too small either. I love the feeling of belonging to the University, of feeling that you´re really at some place special. It´s the "Notre Dame family", as cheesy as that sounds. When I tell people I go to Notre Dame, the reactions are generally pretty strong. It´s either, "Wow, that´s a really tough school, isn´t it?" or conversely you get people who hate Notre Dame. A lot of times people just know about Notre Dame because of the football and bring that up. To be honest, the city of South Bend, IN isn´t much to write home about, but you find things to do. I wish it were more of a college town, but that´s okay that it´s not. There is a lot of school pride at Notre Dame. Almost everyone loves it and I have friends that even cry when we talk about Notre Dame because they love it so much. There´s a lot of stuff unusual about Notre Dame! Dorm life is a big deal; at most other schools people only live on campus freshman year. At Notre Dame, almost everyone lives on campus three years if not all four. There are no fraternities or sororities at Notre Dame, and dorms then become sort of like your frat or sorority although on a lesser level. Each dorm has it´s own mascot and colors and cheers. You generally live in the same dorm each year and go to the pep rallies singing your cheers. Each dorm has signature dorm events, like the Fischer Regatta where each dorm builds a boat (usually out of crazy materials) and then they race them across the lake on campus. We are a strange unique school with many quirks but I love most all of them. Some things I don´t like are rules like parietals. Parietals stipulate that you cannot be in the dorm of the opposite sex (because all the dorms are same sex) between midnight and 9 am on weekdays and between 2 am and 9 am on weekends, unless you´re in the designated 24 hour common space. Sometimes parietals are nice because if your roommate is with their significant other in your room, then you know that at least they´ll leave at parietals. I´ll always remember the football games, especially the USC game my freshman year. I´ll always remember the campus wide snowball fights the first snowfall. I´ll always remember so many things from my time at Notre Dame because it´s just so amazing.

Yes, most of the professors know your name. It depends though, in the larger lecture classes they might not. Although I have had professors in huge lecture classes that made it a point to still know every student´s name. My favorite class was probably Survey of Spanish American Literature II. It was with the best professor ever, and it really made me love Spanish American literature and it made me want to study and learn as opposed to it being something I simply had to do. Students study fairly often, but it depends on the student. We study hard, but we play hard too, and I make sure to have fun and not study all the time, but I still get my work done. Class participation is fairly common, although it depends on the structure of the class. Some classes are formulated to emphasize and require class participation. Yes, students do have intellectual conversations outside of class. It´s really common to hear people in the dining hall debating politics or Dante or religion or discussing anthropology or explaining some theory or another. I have intellectual conversations with my friends every day, and it´s something that I love about Notre Dame, that the students engage in these kinds of conversations outside of class. I love the academics at Notre Dame; I love being challenged intellectually. I love the faculty and I love my classes.

To be honest, Notre Dame is not that diverse. Most of the students are white upper class Catholics. Different types of students do interact, but there´s not that much diversity anyway. Most Notre Dame students are from the Midwest probably, but there are students from all over the country actually, and internationally as well. Students are politically aware and active, and I´d say the student body is predominantly right leaning, since it is a rather conservative school. But there are definitely those who are more liberal on campus as well.

Students in the male dorms always seem to leave their doors open while the females do not. Athletic events are really popular, especially Notre Dame football. Guest speakers and theater events as well are fairly popular; there´s always something going on. The dating scene...well Notre Dame has self proclaimed gender relation issues. Apparently Notre Dating as it´s called is weird. Apparently the notion is that students of the opposite sex are either hooking up or simply acquaintances ant that they can´t be friends or in a relationship. I don´t think this is necessarily accurate, because I have friends of the opposite sex. In that respect too, there does not appear to be much homosexual dating, considering Notre Dame itself is a Catholic University and although the Catholic church accepts homosexuals, it does not approve of homosexuals being sexually involved. This is one thing that really bothers me about Notre Dame actually, and it´s been recent controversy about including sexuality in the non-discrimination clause. There are no fraternities and sororities. People party Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, although some students party during the week as well, and not everyone parties on Thursdays, and not everyone even parties. On a Saturday night that doesn´t involve drinking there are Flipside events; Flipside is a group offering alternative entertainment to drinking. You can go bowling or rollerskating or to a movie. On campus the Student Union offers movie screenings on Saturdays. There´s usually some sort of concert of theater event on campus as well. Or you can just hang out with friends, watch a movie in someone´s room, or go to Legends, a restaurant club type of place where they have concerts or comedians or dance parties.

I am taking this survey on behalf of Badin Hall's Relay for Life Team