Seek Connection: Student Life at Notre Dame

STUDENT LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

College is a grand adventure. It is one that will take you outside of your comfort zone in many powerful ways.

As a Notre Dame student, you will encounter new perspectives, examine beliefs, and collect experiences, both fun and challenging, that will shape the person you become.

Along the way, you will meet some of the most important people in your life. You will benefit from the support of a community that grounds you while encouraging you to grow.

At Notre Dame, our community is built around our students—your unique personality, background, passions, and dreams. You bring an important perspective to the Notre Dame campus and we don’t take your presence for granted. We embrace what is important to you, providing the campus resources of a Top 20 research university and the support of the Notre Dame family.

Here, you will expand on your current passions and explore new ones. You will discover what motivates you, what piques your curiosity, what drives you to excel. Perhaps most importantly, you will find a place to belong.

Your four years here will be some of the most important years of your life. They will be a grand adventure, charting your course to a life lived with purpose.

THIS MAY BE THE BEST FOUR YEARS OF YOUR LIFE.

Your campus experience begins in your residence hall. There are no fraternities or sororities at Notre Dame. All of our 32 single-sex residence halls are the focus of social, religious, and intramural athletic activities.

Students live in one of several quads (short for quadrangles) or residence hall “neighborhoods,” including: East Quad, God Quad, North Quad, Mod Quad, South Quad, and West Quad.

Each hall boasts its own chapel, signature annual event, interhall athletic teams, service initiatives, and personality. You may be a McGlinn Shamrock or a Johnson Valkyrie, a Knott Juggerknott or one of the Dillon Big Red.

Your section, the area of rooms in which you live, will be home to students from various majors and class years. You will make new friends from different states and countries, bonding together over hall events, coffee runs, impromptu movie nights, and those all-important late night conversations about life.

Wherever you live at Notre Dame, you become part of a community and tradition that embraces shared interests while celebrating diversity.

residentiallife.nd.edu

ADVENTURES AWAIT

Notre Dame offers 500+ student clubs and organizations. From rock-climbing to Folk Choir to Notre Dame Rocketry Team, you can create your own adventures, making friends along the way.

Our students captain interhall athletic teams; write for The Observer , our student newspaper; and lead residence hall and student government. They develop ideas through the Entrepreneurship Society. They motivate at-risk children to pursue their dreams through College Mentors for Kids. They produce and choreograph musicals, star in operettas, and film documentaries.

Notre Dame students fill their time outside of the classroom with experiences that enrich their lives and shape their education—and they have a ton of fun while they’re at it.

Explore: sao.nd.edu

CREATIVITY IN ALL ITS FORMS

Inspiration can happen anywhere. Here, it happens everywhere.

One of the best things about college is the variety of opportunities for creative expression. If you feel freest while preparing for a role or painting a set background or laying down tracks, you are among friends at Notre Dame.

The arts at Notre Dame reflect the diversity and cultures of a student body drawn from all 50 states and 100 countries. With more than 900 arts events annually, plus numerous academic and extracurricular programs, our venues, studios, museums, and mentors are dedicated to your creativity.

A Selection of Venues, Programs, Groups, and Resources

BALLET FOLKLÓRICO AZÚL Y ORO

CORO PRIMAVERA

CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM

DEBARTOLO PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

DEPARTMENT OF ART, ART HISTORY, AND DESIGN

DEPARTMENT OF FILM, TELEVISION, AND THEATRE

DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC

NOTRE DAME SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL NOTRE DAME STUDIOS

O’NEILL HALL OF MUSIC

OPERA NOTRE DAME

PASQUERILLA EAST MUSIC COMPANY

RACLIN MURPHY MUSEUM OF ART

SACRED MUSIC PROGRAM

FIGHTING IRISH STATS

35 Division 1 national championships

2 Womenʼs Basketball National Championships

13 Fencing national titles, most recently in 2023

TOP 3 Student-athlete graduation success rate including 14 straight years in first place

Even if you’re not a varsity athlete, Notre Dame provides countless opportunities to engage in athletics. So you can play the sport you love at a high level—or try something completely new. The home of the Fighting Irish is the perfect place to don a uniform, toss a disc, or cheer from the stands.

PLAY AT YOUR OWN LEVEL

WE OFFER:

ª Numerous interhall sporting events.

ª Extensive recreational facilities, including the Smith Center for Recreational Sports and Rockne Memorial. They include weight rooms, tracks, a rock climbing wall, and a long list of group exercise classes.

ª An intramural program that Sports Illustrated deemed one of the best in the country, including Bookstore Basketball, the largest 5-on-5 outdoor basketball tournament in the world.

GO O D F A ITH

Our Catholic faith informs our pursuit of truth academically and spiritually and you don’t have to be Catholic to explore your faith here. Notre Dame has one of the largest campus ministry organizations in the country and this department serves all faiths through Masses, faith sharing groups, retreats, and even transportation to services.

You can work with high school participants at the ND Vision retreat, serve as a Eucharistic minister at your residence hall Mass, or lend your voice in worship to the Liturgical Choir, the Folk Choir, or the Voices of Faith Gospel Choir. You can also talk one-on-one with our pastoral staff for spiritual direction.

SACRED TRADITION

The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, one-seventh the size of the famed French shrine, was created by Notre Dame founder Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C. Now the Grotto serves as a place for quiet reflection for students and all members of the Notre Dame community. You’ll encounter it on Welcome Weekend when your class makes its first official visit together. Upon graduation, you will celebrate one last Mass with your class here before Commencement.

60 + CHAPELS ON CAMPUS including a chapel in each of the 32 residence halls & EVERY WEEK, MORE THAN 40 160 SUNDAY MASSES DAILY MASSES

75 PRIESTS serving as hall rectors, professors, and administrators

MORE THAN ON CAMPUS

30RELIGIOUS RETREATS offered annually through Campus Ministry

Center for Social Concerns

U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns one of the national leaders in community-based learning and service. Its NDBridge program places students within more than 300 community organizations in the U.S. and abroad. Through this and other programs, including a minor in poverty studies, you can experience the intersection of academics and ethics while serving others.

socialconcerns.nd.edu

MISSION

DRIVENMISSION

Our Catholic faith is lived out through service to others. Notre Dame students are concerned for those in need, committed to helping, and give more than they take.

There are many ways to demonstrate your concern for your fellow humans. You can bring Christmas gifts to families in need with your hallmates or raise money for the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh through Bengal Bouts or Baraka Bouts, our annual boxing tournaments. You can also dedicate your post-graduate years to the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program, teaching in underfunded schools while earning your master’s degree.

Whatever your talents and interests, you’ll find a way to put them to use for the greater good.

Our mission to be a force for good in the world means we are committed to creating a more just and peaceful world for everyone. We recognize the humanity in all, striving toward inclusion through campus programs and activities. Each year, our signature Walk the Walk Week takes place around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, celebrating the diversity of our campus while educating our community on issues of diversity and inclusion. A candlelight prayer service under the Golden Dome begins the week.

Notable speakers present on various topics and built-in time for dialogue and reflection allows us to integrate what we learn.

Notre Dame Principles of Diversity and Inclusion

RESPECT THE DIGNITY OF EVERY PERSON.

BUILD A NOTRE DAME COMMUNITY IN WHICH ALL CAN FLOURISH.

LIVE IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL, PARTICULARLY THE MOST VULNERABLE.

diversity.nd.edu

Walking Together

The selection of groups and programs below support diversity and inclusion.

1 st GND

ACCESS-ABLE

ARABIC CLUB OF NOTRE DAME

BLACK STUDENT ASSOCIATION OF NOTRE DAME

CENTER FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

DIVERSITY COUNCIL

GENDER RELATIONS CENTER

INSTITUTE FOR LATINO STUDIES

KLAU CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS

LIU INSTITUTE FOR ASIA AND ASIAN STUDIES

MULTICULTURAL STUDENT PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

MUSLIM STUDENT ASSOCIATION

NATIVE AMERICAN INITIATIVES

NOTRE DAME INITIATIVE ON RACE AND RESILIENCE

P rism ND PROJECT FRESH

SARA BEA ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES

WABRUDA

View cultural student organizations: sao.nd.edu

MANY VOICES,

There’s something profoundly special about being a Domer that every student understands but may struggle to put into words. But this something special is seen and felt by all when students put their arms around each other’s shoulders to sing “Notre Dame, Our Mother,” also known as the “alma mater,” after every football game in the 80,000-seat Notre Dame Stadium. Win or lose, the Fighting Irish join their voices with the Notre Dame band and sing. The song is a celebration of their camaraderie, of friendship, and of their place in the legacy and lore of the University of Notre Dame. “Proud” doesn’t begin to describe it.

otre Dame, Our Mother tender, strong and true, gleams thy gold and blue . golden is thy fame, and our Notre Dame; and our hearts

ONE CONVERSATION

Notre Dame, our mother, proudly in the heavens Glory’s mantle cloaks thee, our hearts forever praise thee, forever love thee Notre Dame.

TAKE THE

BECOME PART OF A UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY THAT SUPPORTS YOUR VALUES, YOUR PASSIONS, AND YOUR GROWTH.

Office of Undergraduate Admissions

McKenna Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA

574.631.7505 admissions@nd.edu admissions.nd.edu

Follow @ndadmissions