My growth as a person in Notre Dame In biology, it is common to define living organisms as creatures that interact with their environment and internalize part of that environment into their own structure. In the context of my experience at Notre Dame, I have been exposed to situations that questioned my priorities and values, fundamentally changing how I see myself. When I was younger, I used to think that my value as a human being fundamentally depended on my academic status: If I were among the firsts in my class ranking, I would be thrilled, whereas if I were one of the last, I would be hopelessly depressed. Even worse, my obsession with ranking also affected how I saw my peers: If they were above me, they would be more valuable, whereas those below me would be seen as inferior. However, that pathological hierarchy that I had erected in my head soon started to hurt my own perspective of self, and it came precisely on my moment of greatest success. When I finally reached the first position in my high school class, this news came to me not as a victory but as a loss. As the "first" among my peers, I felt that I also had no value. As I mentioned before, I used to see the students with worse grades as being "inferior" to me. But then, if all of them were "worthless" due to their lower rank, it naturally followed that I had not earned my accomplishments, and thus I had no worth either. In Psychology, the feeling I was experiencing had a name: "Impostor Syndrome." Impostor Syndrome is the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills "this can spiral into feelings that they don't deserve accolades and opportunities over other people" ("What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it?" by Elizabeth Cox - Moreau FYE Week Nine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo). Indeed, when I received my letter of acceptance to the University of Notre Dame, I thought to myself that a university that could accept someone as unskilled as me could never be one worthy of respect. However, I could not be more wrong. My experience at Notre Dame fundamentally changed me. It showed me that my obsession with academic ranking was a childish and reduced view of reality and that, instead, the world was filled with much more beauty and life than I had initially expected. In the first semester, I was overwhelmed by the number of people I met and the friends I made. In fact, I made so many friends that sometimes I would even forget their names. But I did not forget their names because I was not interested in them; instead, it was because they came in such a staggering quantity that my brain could not process all that information at once. Little by little, however, these friendships grew more robust, and we soon found ourselves in a place where we could share our insecurities and vulnerabilities. Indeed, no matter how hard my trials and tribulations were, I could always rest assured that my friends would always be there for me. As Palmer wrote in Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community, "Communities that can withstand hard times and conflict can help us become not just happy but "at home." ("Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community" by Parker J. Palmer - Moreau FYE Week Eleven http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/). Communities are, by definition, complex systems where the whole is more than merely the sum of its parts. The word "Community" implies interconnectedness, mutual help, and mutual support. As a matter of fact, despite being more than four thousand miles away from my family, I could feel at home because my friends – like my family – would always reach out to me when I needed it the most. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ I am not ashamed to say that I struggled with the amount of work I had to do in this first semester. Indeed, my first grades in college were significantly lower than what I had originally expected. The shock of receiving such low grades genuinely disappointed me. Still, it ultimately acted as a wake-up call for a change in the way I saw myself. It was precisely because of this distress that I realized that there is more to a person's worth than how many answers they get right in a quiz or test. In fact, a few weeks later, I remember reading a phrase from my QQC 10 that perfectly articulated the way I felt after this blow to my pride: "I want people to also know that their hearts are breakable, and it's a very good thing, that it's worth celebrating because it allows you to grow and expand. And you get to put your heart back together." ("Women Find Healing Through Kintsugi Workshop" by Grotto - Moreau FYE Week Ten https://grottonetwork.com/make-an-impact/heal/find-healing-through-kintsugi-art/). If I had not experienced that disappointment, I would not have opened myself up to a new opportunity for growth. In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes that God relies "on the troughs even more than on the peaks" ("The Screwtape Letters" by C.S Lewis - Moreau FYE Week Twelve https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28199/files/192826?module_item_id=109705). What he means by this is that it is in our moments of hardship that we learn to find the things that really matter to us. In this sense, I am thankful for the tribulations that I experienced because they deconstructed the view I had of my grades. Grades don't measure how much you will get paid or how high your IQ is; they only measure how good you are at answering questions under pressure. My obsession with them was, therefore, utterly ridiculous. Throughout this first semester, I learned to detach myself from my academic expectations and be thankful for the friends I made along the way. In conclusion, I feel much happier now than I https://grottonetwork.com/make-an-impact/heal/find-healing-through-kintsugi-art/ https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/28199/files/192826?module_item_id=109705 did before coming to Notre Dame. I hope that the semesters to come will offer me even more opportunities for growth. Going forward, I believe that I need to set some boundaries in order to achieve a more balanced way of life. I feel like sometimes me and my friends party too much. Going overboard when it comes to partying could be detrimental not only to my growth as a person but also to my friends as a community. In years to come, I plan to be more disciplined and seek to help my friends fight against their excesses. In so doing, I wish to improve both my environment and myself.