“Get involved with the school” is an adage we have heard here at Fairfield University from the day we arrived for orientation up until this very day when our mailboxes continue to be cluttered with “campus announcements” and Barone is packed wall to wall with posters and flyers about the different events on campus.
I’ve typically enjoyed my time at Fairfield for many reasons – good friends, good parties and a pretty reasonable workload to match. I started writing for The Mirror my sophomore year and I even tried my hand at hosting a show on WVOF during my freshman year and working with The Ham Channel’s “At The Buzzer” during sophomore year.
Getting involved was something I always enjoyed doing, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I didn’t feel a whole lot of school pride. Maybe it was the constant barrage of self-hating white kids obsessing over the lack of diversity or the “hardcore sports fans” griping about the absence of a nationally renowned sports team. I’m not sure what the reason was, but I do know that people here weren’t exactly bleeding Fairfield red.
This feeling stayed with me until two defining points this year at which I finally started to feel some pride in Fairfield and in the direction this school is heading. The first of these two events was the annual Palm Sunday mass held at the Egan Chapel where, for once, Sunday night became a little more exciting and festive than Saturday night.
Fairfield brings in a gospel choir every year and they do a fantastic job. They get a room of typically very serene students and Fairfield citizens on their feet to sing along and clap to gospel music.
This environment makes church a lot of fun. Maybe it had something to do with Palm Sunday, but I think the fact that there was standing room only in a packed church had a lot do with the fact that Fairfield challenged us to come out of our comfort zone and enjoy a different perspective of religion.
It was a night like this that reaffirmed my faith that Fairfield University is not opposed to being creative and will continue to make this campus a more diverse place. It can work with the community and its imagination to make Fairfield University a more fun and distinct environment that will attract different people from various walks of life for the right reasons.
The other event occurred on March 25 when Fairfield’s men lacrosse played Pennsylvania State University. My excitement for this team started a year ago when Fairfield was playing Notre Dame in lacrosse and our campus was packed with cars. When I woke up at noon on that Saturday, there seemed to be a different buzz about the campus that I hadn’t felt before.
A few of my roommates and I moseyed on down to Lessing Field to watch the second half of a great lacrosse game capped off by Greg Downing putting the game winner in the back of the net as time ran out. It was truly one of the great moments I’ll always remember when I look back at my college experience.
I was fortunate enough to arrive in the middle of the first quarter as Fairfield scored a goal and I got to see an actual Fairfield student section scream, yell and wave white towels as its team took on a major university. I got chills looking into the group of students thinking about the lack of pride in my first two years and finally getting the opportunity to experience something like this.
There are opportunities to have exciting things happen all over this campus. Just make sure you don’t let them pass you by. Extracurricular activities are fantastic for meeting people and building resumes, but to really be involved with this school is to stand next to a thousand of your fellow students and clap until your hands hurt.
Whether it is at church, at a lacrosse game or at the dozens of other activities I failed to mentioned, make sure it’s for something you can take pride at getting involved in.
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