I started out at Loyola feeling nervous, like every student in a freshman class. But at orientation, I already felt at ease as my orientation leaders spoke openly about having coffee with their favorite professors and their appreciation of Loyola’s locale of Chicago. Then in September, I was hired to be a Student Ambassador for the Undergraduate Admission Office. From a tour guide to eventual team leader, I not only learned about Loyola—I met with hundreds of prospective students over the course of the three years I worked there. What I expressed to those students and their families, I wish to express here: no matter what, no matter the university, you will find your place in this world.

What is unique, though, to Loyola and to the Jesuit liberal arts tradition, is the rigorous method through which you can examine what your place might be. You are invited to try new things, like an Anthropology class, or maybe Biology through Art. Father Garanzini, Loyola's President, is eager to meet you as he serves pancakes and sausage at the traditional Loyola Finals Breakfast, staffed by Loyola faculty. I was so lucky as to have professors who transformed my abilities as a writer and a communicator, and who facilitated my going abroad for a year to Nantes, France, where I lived with a French family and gained linguistic fluency from a total immersion experience.

If you are seeking a university that will teach you not what to think but how, Loyola is the home for you. And that is just what it will become: home. You might depart one day from Dumbach Hall, and leave behind the elegant glass of the Information Commons, but Loyola’s maxims will linger, guiding you in the "real world."

Having graduated a semester early in December of 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in French and in English, I pursued my long-time dream of working in law with an immigration firm in Brussels, Belgium. In 2010, I had the opportunity to teach English at an international school in Warsaw, Poland, where I picked up my Jesuit thinking cap and at last embraced the vocation that fait battre mon coeur, as the French say ("makes my heart beat"). This September, I will be completing my MA in Educational Sciences at the Sorbonne in Paris as I teach in an innovative new school, called Living School, a bright light in a jaded education system. In a few years, I hope to open my own school in Paris, and eventually a sister-school in Africa.

Loyola taught me to better the lives of others in a way that is enriching, to listen to that voice that nags at us when we feel that something or someone is disingenuous, and to aspire always to give unto others—these are the ways that lead us to being content human beings and well-rounded citizens of the world.

If you choose to come to Loyola, like I hope you do, I can promise you that if you commit to self-assessment, to reflection and consideration of the fundamental questions of life, and to learning in a way that will inspire you to learn all the days of your life, you will graduate with a degree that will not only assist you professionally, but will change you for the better, and indeed, lead you to live an extraordinary life.

You are the dream: come to Loyola, and make it a reality.