On September 10, the Jaguars went to Saint Bart’s Church for their freshmen retreat. Students got to do activities as a whole class and in small groups. They were able to connect with each other and become closer. The day started off with a couple of icebreaker games and speeches made by seniors. They were also broken into small groups to reflect and share their ideas on friendship and about self-care.
Director of Mission and Ministry and Spiritual Life Department Chair, Amy Jobin, who was one of the leaders for the retreat, and discusses it’s importance.
“The freshmen go on retreat, and we try to do it at the beginning of the school year so that they can get to know each other better, so that the class can start building community, and so that they can begin to understand the mission of Notre Dame and what it means to be part of a Notre Dame community,” said Jobin.
The theme of this year’s freshmen retreat was about loving God, oneself, and one’s neighbors. Jobin, goes on to explain why they chose that as the theme.
“We chose these themes because St. Julie is a part of the history of Notre Dame education, and seeing the goodness of God all around her each day, the importance of friendship and community, and knowing goodness in ourselves were all things that she believed in and we wanted to share this with our freshmen. We also wanted to invite freshmen to focus on the gifts that each one of them has, how they share these gifts with others, and how they can be good friends and classmates to one another,” said Jobin.
Guest speakers talked about creating new friendships at NDB, taking chances, and being oneself.
The students’ activities were games as one whole grade and small group discussions with questions such as “What kind of friends do you hope to find yourself?” and “what do you hope for yourself in your class while you are at Notre Dame?” Elaine Xie and Kiersten Tang shared their experience from their freshmen retreat.
“I think the most memorable activity is that we had lunch together with different groups and it was really fun,” said Xie.
When asked if she got closer to other freshmen, Tang shared,“I felt like I did because we were able to spend one-on-one time with each other and be in smaller groups to learn more about each other.”
Towards the end of the retreat, Jaguars created posters about the seven hallmarks. Each small group created a poster representing the assigned Hallmark and presented it to the whole class. After, they had a closing prayer and were dismissed.
The freshmen all had a wonderful time at the retreat. They grew together as a class and got to learn more about each other. Freshmen learned about friendship, loving God, and to strive to live like St. Julie.
