Why did you choose to go to Mount Mary?
As a student ambassador I have been asked the question many times.
I was a high-school senior with all the choices in the world to make, and I picked Mount Mary. It seemed like an unlikely decision for me, and I've heard many students reflect the same thought. It's a small school, and by some standards, it may even be considered a tiny school. It's a private Catholic institution (I, like many other MMU students, am not Catholic). And finally, one of its most unique and distinguishing qualities: it is an all-women's university.
When I visited Mount Mary for the first time, it felt like home. I could tell that it was a warm, loving, and supportive community where people were happy to see each other, and I craved that. I heard compliments and "have a good day!" being shouted across hallways. As I walked through the campus, people smiled. They asked about me—where I was from, how my visit was going, what I was interested in (and they congratulated me on the Caroline Scholarship). They were happy for me. They reassured me that their slogan, "You belong here," was true specifically for me, and I could tell that I wasn't just another number to them.
The feeling that I had about Mount Mary was a good one. I felt peace when I thought about Mount Mary. However, I knew I couldn't make such a big decision based solely on my feelings. Mount Mary wasn't just my feel-good choice—it was my most practical choice. The location in a quiet corner in the busy city of Milwaukee, surrounded by the beautiful suburb of Wauwatosa, is the best of both worlds. The 80-acre campus—though it had lots of green space—wasn't so big that I felt that I would lose myself there. It was small enough that I could leave my dorm room a few minutes before the start of class, but not so small that I'd feel suffocated. The small size of the school also added to the feeling of sisterhood that was so clear when I first set foot on campus.
Of course, the main reason that we go to school is to receive a quality education. With this in mind, I checked out Mount Mary's academic offerings. As a senior in high school, I had my mind set on studying food science. Mount Mary has a great Food Science program equipped with a state-of-the-art Food Lab, faculty who had worked in the food science industry for years, and a hands-on experimental outlook on learning. Additionally, Mount Mary is one of the few higher education institutions in the Milwaukee area that offers a Food Science program. I was sold!
Now, as many students do, I ended up changing my major a few times throughout my college career. However, at Mount Mary, I knew that I could change my major and still stay on track to graduate in four years. In the Milwaukee community, Mount Mary is known for offering everything from general programs like Business and Communications, to more specific and unique programs like Fashion Design, Art Therapy, and Interior Architecture and Design. Throughout my time at Mount Mary, the options expanded to include even more unique programs like Cybersecurity, User Experience design (UX), and Exercise Science. No matter how indecisive I was, I knew that I would not run out of academic options at Mount Mary.
Aside from having amazingly unique academic programs, the core class requirements at Mount Mary showed me exactly where the university's heart was. First year students are enrolled in a core class called Leadership for Social Justice, which serves as an overview of multiple topics in social justice and an introduction to advocacy work. Throughout the course, students dig deep into the four core values of Mount Mary, defining the terms and applying them to their own lives. This showed me that Mount Mary truly cares about the pursuit of social justice.
Another unique core class that Mount Mary offers Search for Meaning. This class combines the disciplines of philosophy and theology while looking deeply into life's larger issues—joy, suffering, social injustice, purpose, meaning, death and spirituality. The fact that Mount Mary not only offered but required these courses showed me that the school was dedicated not only to developing academically competent people, but to developing well-rounded people who were compassionate and deeply committed to their communities.
One of the largest factors that attracted me to Mount Mary was its extremely diverse student body. As I was researching colleges in the Midwest, I found myself constantly being disappointed by their lack of racial diversity. Every time I got close to falling in love with another school, I was struck by the harsh reality that if I enrolled there, I would be one of the only people on campus who looked like myself. As an African American student, I simply couldn't get comfortable imagining myself attending a school with a 2 to 5% Black population. When I found Mount Mary, that fear disappeared. Mount Mary, to my surprise, did not classify as a PWI (Predominately White Institution). 70% of MMU students identify as people of color, with over 20% identifying as African American. There was an active Black Student Union on campus, as well as a tangible commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the university's leadership. I knew that at Mount Mary, I would never feel ostracized because of my race.
Overall, Mount Mary had me wrapped around its finger from the moment I started researching it. From the great academic programs, supportive community, perfect location, diverse student body, and beautiful values made it easy to choose when I was faced with one of the biggest decisions I would ever make. Although I never would have seen myself attending a small, all-women's, Catholic university in Wisconsin, I can't imagine a place I would have rather spent the first four years of my adult life!
As a student ambassador I have been asked the question many times.
I was a high-school senior with all the choices in the world to make, and I picked Mount Mary. It seemed like an unlikely decision for me, and I've heard many students reflect the same thought. It's a small school, and by some standards, it may even be considered a tiny school. It's a private Catholic institution (I, like many other MMU students, am not Catholic). And finally, one of its most unique and distinguishing qualities: it is an all-women's university.
When I visited Mount Mary for the first time, it felt like home. I could tell that it was a warm, loving, and supportive community where people were happy to see each other, and I craved that. I heard compliments and "have a good day!" being shouted across hallways. As I walked through the campus, people smiled. They asked about me—where I was from, how my visit was going, what I was interested in (and they congratulated me on the Caroline Scholarship). They were happy for me. They reassured me that their slogan, "You belong here," was true specifically for me, and I could tell that I wasn't just another number to them.
The feeling that I had about Mount Mary was a good one. I felt peace when I thought about Mount Mary. However, I knew I couldn't make such a big decision based solely on my feelings. Mount Mary wasn't just my feel-good choice—it was my most practical choice. The location in a quiet corner in the busy city of Milwaukee, surrounded by the beautiful suburb of Wauwatosa, is the best of both worlds. The 80-acre campus—though it had lots of green space—wasn't so big that I felt that I would lose myself there. It was small enough that I could leave my dorm room a few minutes before the start of class, but not so small that I'd feel suffocated. The small size of the school also added to the feeling of sisterhood that was so clear when I first set foot on campus.
Of course, the main reason that we go to school is to receive a quality education. With this in mind, I checked out Mount Mary's academic offerings. As a senior in high school, I had my mind set on studying food science. Mount Mary has a great Food Science program equipped with a state-of-the-art Food Lab, faculty who had worked in the food science industry for years, and a hands-on experimental outlook on learning. Additionally, Mount Mary is one of the few higher education institutions in the Milwaukee area that offers a Food Science program. I was sold!
Now, as many students do, I ended up changing my major a few times throughout my college career. However, at Mount Mary, I knew that I could change my major and still stay on track to graduate in four years. In the Milwaukee community, Mount Mary is known for offering everything from general programs like Business and Communications, to more specific and unique programs like Fashion Design, Art Therapy, and Interior Architecture and Design. Throughout my time at Mount Mary, the options expanded to include even more unique programs like Cybersecurity, User Experience design (UX), and Exercise Science. No matter how indecisive I was, I knew that I would not run out of academic options at Mount Mary.
Aside from having amazingly unique academic programs, the core class requirements at Mount Mary showed me exactly where the university's heart was. First year students are enrolled in a core class called Leadership for Social Justice, which serves as an overview of multiple topics in social justice and an introduction to advocacy work. Throughout the course, students dig deep into the four core values of Mount Mary, defining the terms and applying them to their own lives. This showed me that Mount Mary truly cares about the pursuit of social justice.
Another unique core class that Mount Mary offers Search for Meaning. This class combines the disciplines of philosophy and theology while looking deeply into life's larger issues—joy, suffering, social injustice, purpose, meaning, death and spirituality. The fact that Mount Mary not only offered but required these courses showed me that the school was dedicated not only to developing academically competent people, but to developing well-rounded people who were compassionate and deeply committed to their communities.
One of the largest factors that attracted me to Mount Mary was its extremely diverse student body. As I was researching colleges in the Midwest, I found myself constantly being disappointed by their lack of racial diversity. Every time I got close to falling in love with another school, I was struck by the harsh reality that if I enrolled there, I would be one of the only people on campus who looked like myself. As an African American student, I simply couldn't get comfortable imagining myself attending a school with a 2 to 5% Black population. When I found Mount Mary, that fear disappeared. Mount Mary, to my surprise, did not classify as a PWI (Predominately White Institution). 70% of MMU students identify as people of color, with over 20% identifying as African American. There was an active Black Student Union on campus, as well as a tangible commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the university's leadership. I knew that at Mount Mary, I would never feel ostracized because of my race.
Overall, Mount Mary had me wrapped around its finger from the moment I started researching it. From the great academic programs, supportive community, perfect location, diverse student body, and beautiful values made it easy to choose when I was faced with one of the biggest decisions I would ever make. Although I never would have seen myself attending a small, all-women's, Catholic university in Wisconsin, I can't imagine a place I would have rather spent the first four years of my adult life!
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