Contact:
Reid Oslin
Office of News & Public Affairs
oslin@bc.edu
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (September 2009) - Best-selling novelist Ann Patchett had some simple, yet sage, words of advice for Boston College’s newest students at the University’s First Year Convocation on Thursday, September 17:
“One of the things I want to tell the students is to ‘experiment’ while you are in college and not just play to your strengths,” Patchett said in an interview shortly before addressing the 2,300-plus members of the class of 2013 and students who have recently transferred into Boston College. “Be willing to take courses that are outside of your interests. Use this time to really expand yourself.
First Flight Procession for the Class of 2009 (Gary Wayne Gilbert)
"Your strengths will always get stronger,” Patchett said, “but your weaknesses just kind of fall away.”
Patchett said that she looked forward to the opportunity to help BC’s newest students launch their collegiate careers. “I want them to have an awareness of what a rare privilege this is,” she said, “to get to go to such a good, American university. For a lot of students, it’s a given – they have grown up in a family, in a community where they were always going to go to a really good college, and I think a lot of times they don’t realize how astonishing it is that they have this privilege and you don’t want to mess up any of it.”
Patchett, author of the critically-acclaimed novels Bel Canto and Run, spent the day on campus meeting with faculty, administrators and students before delivering the keynote address at the first Year Convocation, an academic and formative launch point for the newest members of the Boston College community.
Incoming students were asked to read Run, a fictional political story based in Boston that explores the concepts of responsibility, service to others and family ties. The themes of the book will provide a basis for class discussions throughout the year for the freshmen and other new students.
Ann Patchett
On Thursday, the newly-enrolled students enjoyed a barbecue on the Campus Green and then heard the challenge of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola to “Set the world aflame” from members of BC’s Jesuit community, faculty members and senior administrators as they processed together in a “First Flight” to Conte Forum to hear Patchett’s remarks.
“The idea that college is where you go to grow up really troubles me,” Patchett told the students. “You are grown up and this is an enormous privilege. To be aware of this all the time is really important.”
--Reid Oslin