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Tuesday, March 31, 2026
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Buckle your seatbelts, it’s time to study abroad

By Sophia Michetti · Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022

I had a lot of expectations about how my study abroad was going to go, and none of them came to fruition the way I thought they would. Now, this isn’t to say I didn’t have the best time of my life — I definitely did. That being said, my study abroad experience taught me one of the most important lessons I’ve gotten out of my time at Notre Dame: Just go with it.

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Fall is here, but I swear, summer is forever

By Kate Casper · Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022

Perhaps the start of fall isn’t marked by last Thursday’s Autumnal Equinox at 9:04 p.m. Eastern Time — maybe it’s the August 30 return of the Pumpkin Spiced Latte to Starbucks, or the day the box fans start to disappear from dorm room windows. Maybe it’s the first chill of fall you feel on an overcast day on campus or the slow, painful retirement of your flip-flops. However you define this shift, it’s happening, and everyone’s feeling it. 

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Dilemma: Internship or retail?

By Gabriel Ibarra · Monday, Sept. 26, 2022

Dear reader, welcome back to the chaos. Since the last time you’ve read a word written by me, the temperature has dropped to cardigan and corduroy weather. Not only that, but we’ve begun our approach to midterm season. It can be daunting to head into midterms every year, even though we somehow manage it every year. I’m feeling a bit confident in my midterms this year, but the surrounding context is troubling me, and I might want some advice.

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Autistic amplification

By Jack Griffiths · Monday, Sept. 26, 2022

Your six-year-old self timidly clings to your mother’s hand as your eyes are bombarded with harsh rays descending in deluges making you feel like a sweaty performer for the world’s worst stage show as your reddening ears start to swell with the cacophony of babies crying, scanners beeping, suitcases rolling and intercom blaring as you look up to the towering ceiling but regret doing so because now you feel like a powerless pawn in your black tennis shoes from school that are starting to dig and nip at the toes on your feet that aren’t used to walking for this long until you arrive at the giant steel capsule in which you try to stay still for the next two endless hours.

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Faithful in the darkness

By Andrew Sveda · Monday, Sept. 26, 2022

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5 ESV). This deep spiritual darkness is no doubt the state of many Christians, perhaps you, today. A hard-to-explain gloom casts its shadow, and the joy you once had in the Lord feels like a vague memory. Though you continue to read your Bible and pray, God feels far off. 

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Duolingo-ing through life

By Andrew Marciano · Monday, Sept. 26, 2022

This past summer, when I studied abroad in Paris, I went with very limited knowledge of French and an intermediate amount of Spanish (which is definitely not as useful). Before you say, “what a stereotypical study abroad student only talking about his time in Europe,” hear me out — I got an understanding out of it I didn’t really anticipate. In our program, we had the unique opportunity to live in home-stays for six weeks and be completely immersed in the French culture. Our homestay families would cook us dinner three times a week, question us about our day, introduce us to their traditions, tell stories about their lives and show us the best places to see around Paris. 

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Spooky Season for Cinephiles

By Olivia Schatz · Friday, Sept. 23, 2022

Today is the first day of fall and spooky season is upon us! What better way to get into the mood than to put on a good halloween movie. From Hocus Pocus to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, halloween classics range a variety of genres. And while these classics are mentioned on every list, I thought I would create my own. This time, of the more forgotten Spooky Season films. 

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Observer Editorial: Let's create a safer campus

By The Observer Editorial Board · Friday, Sept. 23, 2022

Being back on campus means getting back into the swing of things. Whether that means getting used to school work routines, friend groups or even drinking and going out, it’s not always easy. In addition to a list of resources from our rolodex last week, we want to not forget general reminders that can go a long way in keeping you and your friends safe.

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Religion is for Democrats too, not just Republicans

By Blake Ziegler · Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022

You wouldn’t be alone in associating religion with the Republican Party and secularism with the Democratic Party. Over the last several decades, the rise of the Religious Right has cemented the fact that the Republican Party is dominated by white evangelicals inserting religious views into the party platform. Today, that sentiment is only reinforced as Republican candidates infuse Christianity into their campaign strategy. At Republican rallies this year, we’ve witnessed praise music, prayer, and other practices typically associated with religious worship. These religious practices at campaign events aren’t superfluous either, as Republican candidates call to end the separation between church and state and declare the United States a Christian nation. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has struggled with religion due to the diverse religious and non-religious portions of its membership. In an effort to not alienate voters, Democrats have avoided religious rhetoric, often joined by criticism that they aren’t doing enough outreach to religious voters. 

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Business is not a game

By Krista Lourdes Akiki · Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022

“In recent years, we have grown accustomed to the use of games as models for understanding institutional behavior,” observes Peter French, Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at Arizona State University. The business as a game metaphor has undeniably become ubiquitous in the language and culture of business. Even though this linguistic device can be useful in clarifying multiple business concepts like competition, hierarchical structures and goal achievement, the business as a game metaphor is not always morally neutral and can be quite ethically problematic. In fact, I largely believe that this metaphor also sets up a flagrant fallacy. 

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Try a little tenderness

By Kylie Henry · Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

I first allowed myself to consider the fact that I was asexual in the winter of 2020, with the assistance of a friend. They asked about my sexuality — I told them I identified as queer, but I hadn’t fully defined what queer was for me. We then proceeded to discard one sexuality after another until we landed on asexuality. The following definition of asexuality, which I resonate with most, was published in “The Asexual Manifesto” by Lisa Orlando in 1972

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The contradictory road to November

By Pablo Lacayo · Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

In just over a month and a half, the United States of America has a very important date to keep: the 2022 midterm elections. Since the winter of 2021, every instance of significance that has dominated the news cycle at one point or another has come to be judged through midterm lenses, as political analysts, strategists and commentators weigh in how anything that happens may or may not have an impact on the decision the country makes later on this fall. Contrary to previous midterms, this year’s contests are much more of a head scratcher, as the leadup to them has been a complex minefield that can befuddle even the most devoted followers of the chaos that is contemporary American politics. Throughout the course of the summer, the consensus on how November was going to look has been constantly changing, and many races remain anybody’s guess. 

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A response to 'Not a serious program'

By lettertotheeditor · Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

I read Ryan Peters' "Not a serious program" column that appeared the week after the Marshall game. As an attendee at that game, I would like to make a couple comments relative to what is happening in the stadium during games. I agree with him that ND Stadium IS NOT INTIMIDATING.  It once was. I am a 1970 graduate. I have been in the stadium many years since. I believe it was in 1967 that legendary Southern California coach, John McKay, stated that Notre Dame Stadium was the worst place to play because of the noise level. That noise was created by human voices. We didn’t have a loudspeaker blaring electronic noise between plays. We were so loud the opposing team couldn’t run plays. As another example, several years ago I was sitting in the lower level in the southeast part of the stadium mixed in amongst Pitt fans. As the teams were warming up, a number of Pitt fans were having a great time carrying on about how Pitt was going to maul us. With the "kickoff cheer" and the subsequent roar from the student body and fans in the stadium, they looked shocked and surprised. They sat down, and there was hardly a whimper out of them for the rest of the game.

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A deep hunger

By Dane Sherman · Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022

I hopped on the Manhattan-bound “L” train at 10 a.m., late for work. I overslept and took my sweet time getting up. That’s what summer internships are for messing up, right? The car was lightly filled. Most of the people had already made it to their resting places for the day.

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Apply extreme ownership

By Mikey Colgan · Monday, Sept. 19, 2022

In 2006, SEAL Team 3’s Task Unit Bruiser entered Ramadi with one goal in mind: drive insurgents out of the city and build up the Iraqi forces to create stability in one of the most violent areas in the world. On the first major operation, Jocko Willink commanded his SEAL forces alongside U.S. Army and Marine men and women and inexperienced Iraqi soldiers.

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Fine-tuned prayer

By Devin Humphreys · Monday, Sept. 19, 2022

I am an avid fan of shortwave radio. It was my Gram and Grandpa who got me into the hobby. For years, they've had this big Schaub-Lorenz radio from the 1960's at their house. The radio is so old that it lists frequencies in kilocycles (kc) and megacycles (Mc) because the hertz as a unit of frequency hadn’t been invented yet, but it works perfectly to this day in spite of the fact. That radio had four frequency bands: the standard AM and FM that any radio has (except AM was labeled “MW” for “medium-wave”), plus “SW 1” and “SW 2”. We grandkids knew the radio had these extra buttons, but neither we nor Gram nor Grandpa knew what they did, and whenever we pressed the button out of curiosity, all we heard was static, so we all kind of assumed that was the end of the matter.

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The holy hike never got easier

By Gabriel Zarazua · Monday, Sept. 19, 2022

As those close to me know best, ever since I was 11 years old I wanted to go to Notre Dame. While it was due to watching “Rudy” and falling in love with Notre Dame football, I learned more about the University, its academics and its Catholic tradition. It only led me to fall in love with it more. While I was never the best student, I thought I would be able to attend school there someday. Everyone I knew, from family, friends, teachers, even my dentist, said I was like a modern day Rudy. Fast forward to my senior year of high school, I got my decision letter… denied.

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