Religion at Albertus

As you most definitely should already know by now, Albertus Magnus College is a Catholic College in the Dominican Tradition. This is because back in 1925, the school was founded by some Sisters from this religious sect.

Though we at Albertus are proud of this heritage, it does not necessarily show up all the time in the classroom or living experience. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of religious outlets should you choose to engage, such as Campus Ministry, Choir, and the weekly Mass held on campus; but because I am not associated with any religious affiliation (aka Agnostic), I have not sought out any of these experiences and the fact that Albertus is a Catholic school has really slipped by mostly unnoticed for the past year and a half. 

... That is until this semester when I decided to enroll in Roman Catholicism. In an effort to uphold the "and discover truth in all of it's dimensions" part of the Albertus' mission statement, it is a requirement to take at least one religion course before you graduate. There are tons of classes to choose from, such as: World Religions, Religion & Nature, etc. I chose this class not because of any particular interest, but rather because it fit perfectly into my schedule.

To be perfectly honest, I was not too stoked about having to take this class. Because religion does not play a role in my life, I found it annoying that I have to take this class when right now all I want to do is focus on business courses for my major. Also, spending an hour and a half (give or take) twice a week listening to a teacher drone on and on about Catholicism does not sound like my cup of tea.

That was my mindset going into this class, and when I walked into the classroom to find an actual nun as my teacher, my lack of enthusiasm turned in to dread. That was until the nun, Sister Mariette, started speaking. It turns out, Sister Mariette is actually really cool - she prefaced the course saying that she was not there to convert anybody, but rather talk about what Catholicism is and try to debunk and rumors we may have heard. 

Another cool thing that Sister did was give us a check-list of topics related to Catholicism that we wanted to learn more about. She recognized that this class would only be interesting if we all participated and were interested in the topics covered, so she let us pick out which topics we would like to discuss and learn more about for the rest of the semester - sort of like we are building our own, customized course!

Sister Mariette's enthusiasm and candidness with us was like a breath of fresh air. Instead of being locked in a room about to fall asleep listening to outdated, irrelevant preachings (like I thought this class was going to be) it actually seems like it is going to be very interesting. Sister was open to all of my questions and very honest about her life as a nun and her personal take on some of the Catholic teachings. I'm excited for our second class today!