TURNS OUT, TEN HOURS ISN’T THAT FAR: THE SPIRIT OF WELCOME AT NOTRE DAME

Published: October 03, 2026

Author: Paul Stevenson

The Class of 2030 makes its first trip to the Grotto during Welcome Weekend. Watching from the other side two years later, I knew it was finally time to bring my own candle back. Ten hours never looked that far on Google Maps. Yet somewhere between Duryea, Pennsylvania, and South Bend, Indiana, they started to feel a lot farther.

For months, I told everyone how I couldn’t wait to make the drive to South Bend for the first time. How I couldn’t wait to start living life at Notre Dame. From dorm life and game days to meeting strangers in classes and trying out a hundred clubs, I had imagined it all a million times over. But the fading of familiar street signs made things feel different. Suddenly, a “see ya later” to home felt like a goodbye to the comfort of all my friends and family forever. My usually outgoing self was now wondering how to walk onto a campus where I knew no one.

For the majority of my drive, I was scared. Frankly, part of me wanted to ask my parents to turn around. That feeling faded away quickly when I pulled into Baumer Hall. Before I could even put a hand on my van door’s handle, a sea of boys in matching maroon shirts came racing toward us, all part of the Baumer Welcome Weekend Crew. Car doors flew open, boys began extending handshakes, and before my grandma could so much as touch a box, a blond boy shouted through a megaphone that she was absolutely not allowed to touch a thing.

Move-in day at Baumer Hall with my parents, just a few minutes into my first Welcome Weekend at Notre Dame. It felt like a trick. Could people be this nice? But as I spent that Welcome Weekend running around campus for what felt like nonstop activities, I realized it wasn’t. From dining hall trips with my dorm and field games against others to the annual class photo in the stadium, Welcome Weekend very much felt go-go-go. Yet the moments I remember most weren’t any major events on the orientation calendar. They were the conversations in between. I remember upperclassmen popping into my room after the day’s programming just to ask how things were going. I remember classmates asking if I wanted to explore another corner of campus. I remember fellow Bucs waving me over to pull up a chair at the Baumer tables in South Dining Hall. And with each new name I learned, I started to forget how I’d ever wanted to turn around.

Looking back, I think Welcome Weekend was introducing me to a lot more than just people or places around campus. To make the move-in extravaganza possible, every August, more than 600 students return to campus a week early to welcome our newest students, giving up the final days of their summers to carry IKEA bags, move mini-fridges, and scream themselves hoarse saying hello to people they’ve never even met. Why? I think they do it because they remember what it felt like when someone did all of that for them… they remember the people waiting there when they walked onto campus as strangers and decide they want to be that person for someone else. At least, that’s what happened to me!

Welcome Weekend with the Baumer Buccaneers. Somewhere in that crowd, Notre Dame was already starting to feel a little smaller. Fast-forward two years to this August. I returned to campus for my third Welcome Weekend, not as a new student but as one of our Student Welcome Weekend Coordinators with Residential Life, our orientation team. After spending a summer of many Zooms working with 600+ student volunteers (affectionately known as the St. André Committees, named for the patron saint of caregiving), it was like Christmas morning to see it all come together in possibly one of the best (but most exhausting) weekends of my life. From golf-carting new families around to seeing friends move in with roommates who might be their new best friends for life, it was incredible. And the funny part? Two Augusts ago, I had been the one watching home disappear behind me, terrified of arriving somewhere I barely knew.

My favorite part came at the very end, though. During Welcome Weekend, your class makes its first trip to the Grotto together. When we went as first-years, we were given candles and told to hold onto them. We were told that someday, when we felt like we had found our place at Notre Dame and begun becoming the people we were supposed to become, we should bring our candles back. From being welcomed to helping coordinate the welcome!

Our St. André Welcome Weekend team together after a summer spent preparing for the Class of 2030’s arrival. There were plenty of moments during my first two years when I thought, “this is it.” I almost did it a million times over. Frankly, I was usually too lazy to actually get out of bed, grab my candle, and walk over. But this August, when the weekend was finally over and all our work had come to a close… standing at the Grotto and watching the Class of 2030 make that same first trip I had two years ago when I was so scared of what my time here would bring… I knew it was time. I couldn’t wait any longer. I brought my candle back that night.

So what changed? That night reminded me that the place I had been terrified of was now the place I couldn’t wait to come back to: a home just like Northeast Pennsylvania. And just as the mountains of Wyoming Valley don’t make my original home “home,” neither do the Golden Dome, the Grotto, or the towers of Baumer Hall here. As cliche as it sounds, at Notre Dame, the people are what make the place home: the ones who welcomed me when I was terrified, the ones who waved me over to pull up a chair, and the ones who have become my best friends. It’s crazy to believe that two years ago, I watched Pennsylvania disappear behind me, and being two states away felt like taking a trip around the world. Because the funny thing is the drive is exactly the same ten hours, through Pennyslvania and Ohio. Those miles haven’t changed. The difference? I have. Because now I know those ten hours are just the bridge I have to cross to get between the places with all the people I love; it’s the trip I take excitedly, by car or by plane, to cross between my two worlds. Whether in South Bend or Duryea, I can always say I’m in the same place: somewhere called home.

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