“Winning the Truman Scholarship was a great honor for me and my family. It means a lot to me personally given what I have experienced growing up in Birmingham and losing so many peers to gang violence and my uncle to suicide. Grief has been the ignition behind much of what I do. I want to dedicate my life to addressing the critical issues of mental health and suicide because I do not want anyone else to know the pain my family and I have felt.” - David Nelson '27, one of just 55 nationwide recipients of a 2026 scholarship from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/DavidNelson

“Workshops are a really great way for people to dip their toes into The Hatchery, or even just doing small crafts, like clay magnets for the fridge. My Pinterest is full of different things that I want to DIY, and nine times out of 10 we have the materials for it. A lot of people ask, ‘What do you think the best way to do this is?’ And if I don't know the answer, I'll just say, ‘Just try it, tweak it, and try again.’ It's a nice low-pressure situation compared to so many other elements of life.” - Sarah Ryan ’26, who was employed at BC’s makerspace, The Hatchery | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/TheHatchery2026

“Boston College's Jesuit, Catholic ethos promotes people doing something to serve the common good. It could be a new program to help the homeless. Or it could be a new device to help people in another country. That ethos is here, and our efforts in design thinking are based on harnessing the power of design for the common good. That is the overarching goal.” - Sunand Bhattacharya, Associate Vice Provost on BC's new minor in Design Studies | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/DesignMinor

“It’s a funny story—I came to the States from Argentina as an au pair back in 2018, and my host family went to Boston College, so they took me to a football game and showed me around. I remember saying, ‘Man, this place is amazing. I wish I could study here.’ A few years later I got married and went back to school at Bunker Hill Community College. I knew I wanted to finish my four-year degree, but I thought BC would be out of reach. Boston College - Woods College of Advancing Studies showed me that it’s actually possible to earn a degree while working full-time. The flexibility of the program made it manageable to balance everything, which I really appreciated.” - Samantha Akers '26, a Woods College graduate | READ MORE of her Senior Reflection: https://on.bc.edu/SAkers

“The moment that I let go of the corporate stuff and began pursuing something I wanted, all these connections and opportunities started popping up. I went abroad for about a year and took life coaching classes in London and Amsterdam, then came back and finished in Japan. In a lot of ways, life coaching is similar to recruitment because I was already having these deep conversations with people about their lives. The difference now is, instead of pivoting into selling you a job, I just pivot into helping you understand yourself, and I don't sell you anything. So it was kind of the perfect next step.” - Levi Pells ’16, who left a high-paying job in Tokyo to start a life coaching and retreat business in rural Japan | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/LeviPells

“My one piece of advice, and maybe it sounds cringey, is don't be afraid to be authentic. It’s easy to get swept away in the competitiveness of it all, and having a ‘perfect picture’ to show people. I was just like, ‘guys, you can have that, but you can also be funny! You can also be kind! It's okay to feel things and go through things—you don't always have to be perfect all the time.’ That's something I struggled with my first year at Boston College, so I wanted to mirror that and how I've grown and pass that advice along to current first years.”- Kelley Knox ’26, who helped host in a community circle for first-year students as part of a Capstone Seminar on restorative practices | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/BuildingBelonging

"I’m really excited to explore changing trends among Catholic youth in the United States. I’ve seen a lot of other outlets offer some cursory coverage of Gen Z’s Catholic revival, and I think America is the perfect place to do a deeper dive into that." - Will Martino '26, who was selected by America Magazine - The Jesuit Review as a 2026-27 Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Postgraduate Media Fellows | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/OHareFellows2026

"I only had one thing on my mind, and that was to make my dad proud. He immigrated to the U.S. and uprooted his whole life to make sure my siblings and I had every opportunity available to us to achieve and make all our dreams happen. I wanted to make sure all his hard work was not in vain. I will forever be grateful that I chose to attend Boston College. BC's Jesuit values, like being people for others and cura personalis, have shaped me into the leader and advocate that I am." - Tushar Nag '26, a Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development graduate | READ MORE of his Senior Reflection: https://on.bc.edu/TNag

“I never left the country until I came to Boston College. I was in a ‘New England bubble.’ Through my international experiences, I got to learn [about] other cultures and meet other individuals and learn what health means to them. That’s so important for us as nurses because we're dealing with different people from all walks of life. In my Boston Children’s Hospital clinical, we had kids from Saudi Arabia, Haiti, and all over. In order to understand how to care for these individuals, we have to first understand them, what health is for them, what makes them feel good, and what's important to them. Without that, we're not going to meet them where they're at. I learned to find commonalities and the small things that can build relationships. I learned how to make people feel more comfortable when they’re in a place where they are so uncomfortable.” - Samantha Corrado '26, a Boston College Connell School of Nursing graduate | READ MORE of her Senior Reflection: https://on.bc.edu/SCorrado

“One of the questions they ask you in the BC Companions interview is 'How do you feel about being in class with people who are 19 to 22?' And I said, 'Well, I think I'm okay with it because I've been teaching teenagers at our church for many years, and I enjoy that very much. I love their energy; I love their positivity.' I just didn't know how the Boston College students would react to me. As it turns out, they were amazing. I felt like just another member of the class and came away with an incredible positivity about that generation of young people. They were smart, committed, engaged, and interested. The hardest part for me was keeping up.” - Bill Reynolds, a member of the inaugural Boston College Companions program | READ MORE in Boston College Magazine: https://on.bc.edu/BacktoCampus_BCM

“My Catholic faith has always been an integral part of my life, but ‘God, Self, and Society’ was my first introduction to interpreting and understanding God's presence through an analytical lens. By reading pieces from the Bible, the Torah, Hindu philosophers, and Muslim thinkers, I was able to deepen my own connection with God, but also learn about God's ubiquitous and distinct presence across nations, cultures, and generations. I relished the opportunity to bolster my understanding of Catholicism, but it was just as significant to hear from people of all faith denominations in my class. It allowed me to form a perspective of religion that I will carry with me the rest of my life.” - Bradley Perlman ’28

“It was surreal. It was an out-of-body experience. I didn’t think that I was going to win, and I was surrounded by so many other amazing chefs that I was humbled to just have the experience. It means so much to represent Boston College in this competition. I work with an amazing team and to be their spokesperson through this is very humbling.” - Phyllis Kaplowitz, BC Dining Services Executive Chef who earned first place in the National Association of College & University Food Services 2026 Northeast Culinary Challenge | READ MORE: https://on.bc.edu/FishingforGold