Our course

This mini-course on Living Lives of Purpose was especially designed for high school students from Instituto San Román and Instituto Nuestra Señora de Lourdes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Colegio Emmanuel d'Alzon in Bogotá, Colombia, who participated in the Summer Cultural Exchange Program at Assumption College, in Worcester, MA in summer 2017.

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Our conversations

Our weekly conversations on the pursuit of purpose and vocation in our lives allowed us an opportunity to explore our past  and to reflect on our present experiences with the goal of discovering hidden meanings, desires, and gifts we each possess.  As Parker J. Palmer suggests in his book Let Your Life Speak, our discussions started from the idea that purpose and vocation do not come from a voice “out there” calling us to be something we are not.  It comes from a voice “in here,” inside of you and I, calling each of us to be the person we were born to be. It is common to ask oneself the question what should I do with my life?  Although this is not a wrong question, in this course we focused on two more basic, yet still very challenging questions that Palmer recommends we ask ourselves:

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Who am I? and What is my nature?

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Our project

As a way to keep a record of  our class themes and conversations, each student was invited to reflect on these questions by way of searching for their passions, desires, communities, and personal limits through photography and text.

 

This website displays the work done by the students in this course. The idea is for each of us --and for you who is visiting this site--,  to continue to think and reflect on how our personal and collective experiences can bring meaning and help give purpose to our lives in the years to come.