Written by Alison Coffman ’12, English Education and Catholic Studies

As a freshman I had big plans to major in Business Communications, maybe pick up a minor in Art History on the side, and eventually pursue a career in the corporate world. If someone would have told me that I’d end up majoring in English Education with a Catholic Studies minor, and that my first job out of college would be teaching in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I probably would have punched them out of disbelief.

But that’s the way my college career has gone, and I couldn’t be happier. After my first Microeconomics class, I couldn’t run away from a business major fast enough. Studying English has been fascinating, and I did end up taking an art history course during my semester abroad with Catholic Studies in Rome. But what about Tulsa?

Next year I’ll be participating in the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program at the University of Notre Dame. A joint service/study program, I’ll simultaneously work toward my Masters in Education while serving as a teacher in an under-resourced Catholic school for two years. Catholic Studies has moved me to see the incredible value of Catholic education in my own intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation. Pursuing a vocation as a Catholic school teacher, I will be able to use my formation to serve others, to support and promote the well-being of Catholic schools across the country, and so make my career valuable because of the way it seeks to build the Kingdom here on earth. These might not be the big plans I had in mind for myself; they’re infinitely better. Catholic Studies helped me see God’s big plans for me.