Academic Discernment Resources

The Center for Academic Transformation and Excellence, Meruelo Family Center for Career Development, Moreau Program, and other campus partners invite all students to engage in an intentional process of discernment and decision-making.

Are you trying to decide your major? Are you looking to find your place in this world? Inspired by the life and ministry of Fr. Michael Himes, the following information focuses on college students, yet it assists anyone deciding on a career or a new way of living life to the full.

Three key questions to help people make a decision on where their life is going.

Consider Three Questions

1. What brings you joy?

2. What are you good at?

3. What does the world need you to be?

By reflecting on these questions you will be able to make informed decisions regarding your next steps as a Notre Dame student. Remember, this is a journey - you don’t need to have all the answers right now. You just need to take the first step.

Dive deep into these three questions with an excerpt with Fr. Himes.

Discernment Resources

Meruelo Family Center for Career Development

Explore these three key questions and find a meaningful path to Major and Career Discernment.

Campus Ministry

Finding God’s voice in your life is so important, yet it can be very challenging at times. Explore how campus ministers are here to listen to, pray with, and help you find clarity amid the sometimes overwhelming and unknown parts of life.  Called to serve?  Consider participating in Mercy Works, Campus Ministry's Service in South Bend program.  Inspired by Gospel values and the Catholic social tradition, we believe engagement in community is integral to discerning your responsibilities and your commitments, now and in the future.

Institute for Social Concerns

The Institute for Social Concerns at Notre Dame offers justice education, fellowships, and research opportunities locally, nationally, and internationally. Engage with the world's most pressing social concerns while working to develop creative and effective community-based approaches to addressing them.  As you develop your moral imagination and the courage to act, you can better to discern how to integrate your academic studies with a future life and career rooted in justice and the common good.

Institute for Ethics and the Common Good

Discern a life of virtue through participation in one of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good's signature programs or undergraduate fellowship.  Through immersion experiences and virtue-rooted apprencticeships, you might learn, form, and deepen intentional habits that foster leadership in a life of virtue.  

Moreau First-Year Seminar

While continuing to deepen your self-knowledge, the Moreau Progran will invite you to actively discern the vast potential avenues of life. The process of discernment is an ongoing, lifelong endeavor. And while you are the authors of your story, it is often helpful to involve those we trust.