Patty Hermann

When I first came to school, my life was crazy. My family had just moved from my hometown, my twin sister and best friend was starting at a different college in Pennsylvania, and my older sisters were in St. Louis and Nashville. My first night on campus I felt like I didn't know anyone. During orientation I met what seemed like the entire freshman class and started to make some truly wonderful friends. As it turns out, several of the people I met are Catholic. Surrounded by a group of freshman just as terrified as I was, I walked into the Newman Center expecting a normal Mass. I was wrong. The Newman Center is anything but normal. The second I walked in the door, I was introduced to about a dozen students who remembered me week after week until we became friends. In the ten minutes before Mass began, I met some of the greatest people I know.

Flash forward a few weeks and I'm starting to look forward to Sunday Mass. I grew up in a Catholic family and faith has always been an important part of my life. Still, there is a great deal about my faith that I don't know. The Newman Center provides me with a group of people who know the faith and are always willing to listen to what I had to say and answer my questions, whether they are about Catholicism, school, life, whatever. As I continue at TU, I grow closer and closer to God through the amazing community of friendship and faith that I encounter at the Newman Center.