Retreats at Saint Mikes

 I took this by the water after a snowball fight with my friends on the frozen lake at the shrine

Saint Michael's College known to be a loving place where you are not only a part of a community, but also a family. One of the special parts of this school is that they do retreats such as ones for Sports teams, L.E.A.P, and Emmaus. The purpose of retreats as a whole are to bring people together and bond without technology at the gorgeous Saint Anne's Shrine. There are activities that vary depending on the type of retreat you are on that will make the experience that much more special. I've personally been on retreats there back when I played Rugby for the school, did L.E.A.P as a candidate freshman year then was on team for it the year after that, and I just recently went on Emmaus.

I first went on the L.E.A.P retreat fall of my Freshman year and it was incredible. There are a lot of cool surprises in terms of what your sponsor does for you, the scheduling since technology isn't allowed to be with you along with having the clocks covered, and just the experience as whole. You have incredible people share there stories with themes behind each one, work with each other in small groups, and learn how powerful it feels to become vulnerable. Being on talk team for it afterwards was pretty amazing too, so empowering. There is a lot of self reflection, laughs, and binding as whole; I highly recommend it even if you are heavily affiliated with a religion or catholic.

After that I started playing Rugby, which was so much fun and I wish I had contact lenses so that I could play again.Anyways, going to the shrine for a weekend is common for sports teams here at Saint Mikes so we went on retreat too. I don't know how it works for each particular sport but we shared a lot of personal stuff, played games, and goofed around. It was more laid back and I was able to do more during my free-time.

Lastly, I recently went on the Emmaus Retreat which was pretty incredible. Even though I'm not religious I was open to the emphasis of God and Faith that was a theme throughout the weekend. We meditated a lot, self-reflected, did scripture readings, and got to relax a lot more than I had been able to at other retreats.

The order of the retreats I went on was perfect because they all guided me on a journey to a better "me." I've met some beautiful people along the way and cannot wait to see what's to come for future experiences at the shrine. Cannot recommend these retreats enough to people, they are amazing ❤

Changing my Major

   This is my blog post debut as a social media ambassador and I am so excited about it! This is a good time to introduce myself; my name is Sabrina McLaughlin (Quimby) and I am a Junior hear at Saint Michael's College. My major s Anthropology with a Psychology minor, though it wasn't always that way.
   Freshman year I came into college majoring in Elementary Education and Psychology, but as my first year progressed I realized that I was more into Psychology more than teaching so I dropped the Education major along with picking up an Anthropology minor. I love kids but studying human behavior was more of my realm. This changed was controversial to one of my family members because of the stereotypes of job markets for certain majors but honestly life is too short to not study what you love.

           Anyways...

  I go through my sophomore year thinking I had found my calling and all was well but something still was off but I would realize until fall of my Junior year that this wasn't a good fit for me either. My grades in my Psychology courses were not great since I got to Saint Michael's College but I always excelled in my Anthropology courses.  The cultural aspect of human behavior and understanding of people beyond our norm fascinated me so I decided to make a change...again. I downgraded my Psychology major to a minor and upgraded my Anthropology minor to a major; things finally felt right even though it took forever to get there.

  The moral of this story is that it's okay to change your major and not always know what you want to do because here at Saint Mikes we will help you get to where you want to be. We have all of our wonderful faculty and staff (for example: Career Development office) along with your lovely peers that can give you advice from their experience. The journey may be longer to find your calling, but at least they will be a fantastic support system to guide you through the confusion.