Madison Riehle
Editor-in-Chief

I remember my teacher handing me a blank piece of paper and asking the class to write down what we wanted to do in the future. Looking down at the paper for a moment, I wondered how I could know as a 11 year old what I wanted to do, before I grabbed my pencil and wrote out my one life goal: Go to Notre Dame.

At that time I had just visited the school, my dad’s alma mater, for the football game against UCLA where I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere, culture and quarterback Brady Quinn. The school became everything to me.

But when college decision letters were sent out earlier this month, I didn’t get into Notre Dame.

Instead, the university enrolled me into the Holy Cross Notre Dame Gateway Program, in which 20 students who applied to Notre Dame are instead enrolled into nearby Holy Cross College and take classes at both schools, and then transfer to the university sophomore year.

I was devastated, even with the opportunity proposed to me. I felt like I had been rejected and duped by the place that felt like home.

I have always been a planner and assumed my life would be the straight track that my fifth-grade self believed in. Notre Dame was always just what I would do, and I never thought anything of it.

The offer, though, is a blessing in disguise. I still get to go to Notre Dame events, participate as a Notre Dame student and receive a Notre Dame degree, which is what I truly wanted.

Accepting failures and facing obstacles that come aren’t easy — but nothing is ever going to be easy. Failures are what ultimately drive motivation and lead to success.

Life isn’t always going to work out the way we want, and not everything is going to go according to plan. After all, as someone important has told me, it’s not about where you start, it’s about where you end.