Current students from the ND Admissions Intern Team are stepping in as your guest hosts for season two of College Bound: Notre Dame Admissions Podcast! In this first episode of season two, interns Hailey Oppenlander, Catherine O'Leary, Tajae Thompson and Nicole Campbell discuss why they love their majors, their favorite classes, and most memorable professors.
Current students from the ND Admissions Intern Team are stepping in as your guest hosts for season two of College Bound: Notre Dame Admissions Podcast! In this first episode of season two, interns Hailey Oppenlander, Catherine O'Leary, Tajae Thompson and Nicole Campbell discuss why they love their majors, their favorite classes, and most memorable professors.
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Welcome to College Bound: Intern Edition! We're your hosts, I'm Catherine O'Leary, I'm Tajae Thompson, and I'm Hailey Oppenlander. The counselors are busy reading your applications, and we are here to give you the student take on Notre Dame.
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Hey, guys, it's your hosts, Hailey, Tajae, and Catherine. We're going to introduce ourselves doing the typical "Notre Dame introduction."
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HAILEY: I'm Hailey. I'm a junior living in Badin Hall, and I'm majoring in American Studies and sociology. Tajae, do you want to introduce yourself?
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TAJAE: Yeah, I'm Tajae, like Haley was saying, and I'm a junior living in Johnson Family Hall and I'm double majoring in marketing and sociology, also. And Catherine?
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CATHERINE: Hey, guys, it's Catherine O'Leary here. I am a senior, theology and pre health studies major from Columbia, South Carolina. And I was in Breen-Phillips Hall for three years, and I'm currently off campus.
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HAILEY: And today, we are here with our fellow intern, Nicole, as our special guest for this episode. So, Nicole, do you want to introduce yourself?
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NICOLE: Hi, guys! My name is Nicole. I am a Neuroscience and Behavior major, minoring in Education, Schooling and Society, and Collaborative Innovation. I am a sophomore and I am in Cavanaugh Hall.
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HAILEY: Awesome. So today the four of us are going to talk about majors and our favorite classes and professors. So, Nicole, why don't you start us off? Can you tell us why you picked your major and minor?
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NICOLE: Awesome. So I picked my neuroscience major because for a long time I've had a really strong interest in human behavior and why people think the way they do. And so for a really long time in high school, I thought I was going to major in psychology, until I learned more about like neurodevelopmental diseases and things like Tourette's and ADHD, and I wanted to learn more about the biology behind that.
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NICOLE: And then I learned about Notre Dame's neuroscience program, specifically in the College of Arts and Letters, which would allow me to get a lot more of a liberal arts education, which is something I was particularly interested in, and it allows me to minor in Education, Schooling, and Society, which is something I'm also super interested in, as well as Collaborative Innovation, because I'm super interested in art and design as well.
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HAILEY: Tajae, do you want to go next and tell us about how you picked your majors?
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TAJAE: Yeah. So I originally came to Notre Dame as just an English major, but then during the first semester of my first year, I had one of those like identity crises that like everyone has. And I was like, you know what, let's internally transfer into Mendoza (College of Business). You know, why not? And I did. And it wasn't like that serious of a decision because it was so early that I could just switch off. But I was like, might as well try it. And then, here I am. I decided to major in Marketing and I really enjoy it. But unfortunately, I didn't keep any English. And I recently, just this year, changed my major to sociology as well as marketing. And I'm just really excited for the different kind of coursework and just like the things I'm going to learn in the major.
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HAILEY: Great. And Catherine, do you want to tell us about how you picked your majors?
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CATHERINE: Yeah, definitely. I've always been interested in theology and religion, and I figured, you know, there's really no better place to study theology than at Notre Dame because we have an incredible department. I think it might be like number one in the world or something. I'm not sure, but it's really great. And I also knew that ultimately, I didn't really plan on pursuing academic theology, I kind of wanted to pursue medicine.
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And so I kind of thought the arts and letters pre-health major was a perfect supplemental major for theology because it allows me to fulfill the premed requirements that I need to go to med school, while also like Nicole was talking about, getting a good liberal arts education. And I've gotten to take a lot of different courses I wouldn't otherwise, so I've enjoyed it a lot. Yeah, it's been awesome.
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HAILEY: Well, and I can't not plug my own majors. I discovered American Studies by obsessively searching on the Notre Dame website, scrolling through all their lists of majors. And I watched a little video about it and liked how it was kind of a culmination of every single major, because I'm really indecisive and didn't want to study just one thing, and it really allows you to study everything. And also, if you're a West Wing fan, President Bartlett fictionally was an American Studies major at Notre Dame, so that's pretty exciting. And I ended up adding sociology my sophomore year because I wanted a bit more quantitative research skills and the department is just really great also.
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HAILEY: So, Nicole, what are some favorite classes that you've taken for your majors so far?
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NICOLE: Since I'm only a sophomore, I haven't gotten the chance to take a ton of electives yet, but some of my favorite classes have been a lot of the core neuroscience requirements. One of my favorites being my Intro to Cognitive Neuroscience class with Dr. Jessica Payne. I talk about this class with all of my friends. While I was taking the class, I would talk about the things I was learning with all of my friends. I think it's super, super interesting and it was the perfect blend of psychology with neuroscience and biological concepts, and it made me realize that that's the path that I want to go down, and I'm hoping to pursue research in cognitive neuroscience and education in the future and combining the two. And so that class was really instrumental in realizing how passionate my interest was in that field.
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Also, Dr. Payne Is a fantastic professor and I absolutely loved her. She really made a great point to connect with her students. Her lab on campus is super interesting and I actually got to be a participant in one of her studies. The whole experience was fantastic. I also really, really enjoyed my "U-Sem," my university seminar that I took my freshman year. So that class was with Professor Mark Barens and it was called Contemporary Educational Issues, I believe.
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And that class is the reason that I'm now an ESS minor, because it opened me up to realizing a lot of the issues that were going on in education, and it sparked my passion for wanting to make a change in education. The way that the U-Sem is set up I really enjoyed and I thought it was a great start to my freshman year, so I'm really glad that one of my best classes was like my first semester of freshman year.
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HAILEY: OK, Catherine, do you want to tell us about some favorite classes you've taken in your majors?
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CATHERINE: Yeah, definitely. So the first one that comes to mind was an eight a.m. I think it was like my sophomore fall and Monday, Wednesday, eight a.m., not even an 8:20, pretty brutal. But it was called the Theology of Nature, taught by Professor Anselma Dolsage-Ashley. So kind of a handful of names there, but she's awesome. She is a professor with the Glynn Family Honors Program.
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And I think the way you know that you love the class, is if it is like that early in the morning and you're still really excited to go. I enjoyed it so much. We did a lot of really interesting reading and we examine kind of questions of how humanity relates to nature theologically and, you know, we're human- what does it mean that humans were granted domain over the earth? And yeah, it's a pretty weighted statement. And there's a lot to it.
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And the second one is by far the best class I've taken at Notre Dame. Within the class we always talked about the fact that it should be mandatory for everyone. Like it's incredible. Anyways, I'm going to tell you, it is now, it's called A Heart's Desire and Social Change.
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It's taught by the Vice President of the university, Father Dan Groody. And it's just a whole semester long. And and I feel like in college it's kind of easy to you just go to your classes and maybe you meet one or two people, maybe you don't meet anyone. And I don't know. But like this class, you're going to get so close to your classmates, which I think is really unique. And it is a theology, but there's just so much applicable content and it's kind of about how it's like self actualization, like how to be happy, how to discover your vocation and live your life. And the readings are great. The course is great. You know, everyone says it changes your life. It's a life-changing class. So definitely would recommend thosetwo.
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HAILEY: That sounds really cool, and I applaud your ability to get up for those eight AM's. All right, Tajae, you want to talk about some of your favorite classes?
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TAJAE: Yeah. So unfortunately, since I just changed to the sociology major, I'm taking three classes this semester, so I can't speak on those yet, but they all seem really cool. I'm taking Understanding Societies, Intro to Social Problems, and Environment, Food and Society, and I'm just really excited to see what I like, the information I learn.
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But as for marketing, last semester I took one of the marketing requirements, which is called Consumer Behavior. And it was just really cool kind of putting that psychology behind why people purchase things- like what are the decisions behind purchasing decisions? And the professor, which was Professor James Wilkie, he's so cool and is constantly using real world examples because it's great to learn information, but if you can't apply to the real world, it's kind of useless. So I really had a lot of fun in the class.
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HAILEY: Well, thanks, Tajae. I think for my favorite classes, I'm going to have to cheat and pick two. But one, it was Civil Rights in America with Professor Chaika, and it was just really awesome to get a background that is pretty much lacking in a lot of other traditional areas of education, and just getting to read from a lot of black authors and learn more about the civil rights movement. That spring break, we got to go on a trip to the American South and see a lot of the important sites that we had read about. So it was really cool to not just get to read about these things and discuss them in class, but also go to those places. And just being in those spots was really impactful.
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And my other course would be Data Feminism with Professor Walden. She's actually new to the university, but she is so amazing and works at the intersection of data science and American studies, and I never thought that I would be a person to enjoy programming, but it's really cool because it's not just like the coding that makes a class fun, it's really the context of the data and trying to think about what technology and surveillance means, especially in minoritized communities and how we can work with organizations to make a difference using data science. So I highly recommend both of those.
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NICOLE: I remember seeing you posting about the data feminism class and it just looks so cool like that class looked awesome.
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HAILEY: Yeah, it's like I kind of took it because I thought that I would break up of the reading and writing I had to do, which it was still a lot of reading and writing, but just data on top of that, but it was my favorite class that I took last semester and it was just so interesting because no one else really is studying that here.
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NICOLE: That's awesome.
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HAILEY: So thanks for joining us for this episode as we all gushed about our majors. And we're just going to conclude with a piece of advice from our guest, Nicole.
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NICOLE: I think the biggest piece of advice that I have regarding majors and like figuring out your major, because I know that's an issue that a lot of students incoming to the university think they have to know their major right away. And you really do have a lot of time to figure out what you're interested in. And that's what especially like your freshman year, you're even into your sophomore year for, are discovering what you're passionate about and having a passion for what you're doing and I think is really useful. I know I would have never picked up my minor unless I had taken my university seminar my freshman year, so I think being open to change in your academic schedule as well as just being open to anything is really important.
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HAILEY: Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Don't forget to follow us on our social medias @NDAdmissions. And Nicole is our TikTok queen, we just started our TikTok, so be sure to follow us there especially.
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NICOLE: Thank you.
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HAILEY: Tune in next week to hear our conversations about Notre Dame folklore and our favorite traditions.