Jesuit education, Date and Time, Service

              I have only been a student at Loyola University for one semester, and yet I have already felt the importance of the Jesuit education tradition at this school. The unique culture of the Jesuit education brings the students at Loyola acceptance, diversity, community, justice, and service. These five central values are what made me excited to be attending this University. Since my first day on campus, I felt how important it was to this school to make this University a place where the student felt as though they were in a community and felt a sense of belonging. I also noticed how the school stresses the importance of traveling around Baltimore to do service and to become a part of the diverse community of the city.
             To me, the five parts of the Jesuit school are important because I feel like at most universities’ students feel lonely and feel like they are on a journey by themselves. I think this happens at other Universities because students feel like they don’t know anyone at the school, and they feel separated from the ones they love. I think this is a familiar feeling that many students feel and that Phil Kaye perfectly writes about in his poetry book, Date and Time. In the second third of the book, there is a big overlapping theme of feeling lonely, distant, and unexcepted. Phil does this by describing personal stories through poetry.
             In the second third of the book, Phil talks about how he feels unexcepted by society because he was skinny and week. He brings up how he felt that he needed to “crave” the pain that would make him stronger. In several other poems in this section, you see how the author felt that he didn’t belong because his friends would make fun of him for their benefit. For example, when he was younger, he had a friend joke about him so he would be able to site at the popular table, leaving Phil to sit himself feeling unexcepted. Even in one poem of this section, he writes about the distance in his family when his mom decides not to go on his family trip. Reading all this made me feel bad for the author, yet glad that I am at a University that does everything in its power to make sure their students don’t feel that way.
             As I get into my second semester at thins school, I am excited to be doing a travel assignment that will force me to get off the school’s grounds and immerse me in Baltimore’s community. I will be going on a bus to a museum to experience an exhibit. During this trip, I will be able to experience the city as a part of the city’s community by traveling on a bus and seeing the many neighborhoods that I don’t get to see as a student. I feel like doing this assignment will make me feel apart of the city’s community and will hopefully make this new city feel more like home.