![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2020\/05\/Sarah-Hirschmann.jpg?resize=993%2C559&ssl=1\")
Sarah Hirschmann is not too disappointed that her senior year at University of Detroit Mercy was cut short by a global pandemic. She\u2019s not even disappointed that, as valedictorian, she will not be giving the address she worked so hard on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are bigger problems,\u201d she said. \u201cCOVID has taken so much, a ceremony like this isn\u2019t a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
This realism came at great cost: Hirschmann\u2019s 24-year-old brother Benjamin died of COVID-19 at home on March 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing OK,\u201d she said of her family. \u201cWe have a good support system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hirschmann said her family planned on gathering at their home in Fraser on May 9, the original date of Detroit Mercy\u2019s undergraduate commencement, for a nice dinner and a quiet celebration to honor her and another brother who graduated from law school this year.<\/p>\n
She\u2019ll likely be able to give her speech when the University reschedules the 2020 Commencement ceremonies in the fall.<\/p>\n
Hirschmann was recruited to play soccer at Detroit Mercy, and was the goalkeeper for four years. The feel of the campus and the way faculty members cared for her as a person and a student, though, sealed the deal and she has not regretted her decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt surpassed all my expectations,\u201d she said. She has grown, she says, due to the support and encouragement of faculty and friends and opportunities that Detroit Mercy offers. And she is most thankful for the relationships she has built over the last four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou start out with a small group like the soccer team, and then you broaden your group in classes and organizations, and then you broaden it further through service and pretty soon you have really strong relationships with students, faculty and the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While at Detroit Mercy, she traveled to El Salvador, Kenya and India to teach on service trips. She worked with the Pope Francis Center downtown and in soup kitchens in Detroit. She worked with her soccer teammates on other service work, taking families under their wing. She taught in Detroit Public Schools and helped with other student-driven service projects.<\/p>\n
She co-chaired the committee that brought hundreds of students from across the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities to campus last summer for the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference. It was the first time the conference had been at Detroit Mercy.<\/p>\n
An Elementary Education major, Hirschmann is excited about the prospect of working in the Detroit Public Schools and has applied for a temporary teaching certificate which will allow her to apply for next school year\u2019s teaching jobs during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Her next goal, though, is to take the LSAT \u2014 though she doesn\u2019t know when that might happen thanks to the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Hirschmann urges current and future Detroit Mercy students to look into the unique opportunities presented by the University.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy involvement on campus is what made my experience here,\u201d she said. \u201cI would tell every student to get involved on campus, because of all the relationships I have built.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more stories about Hirschmann’s work in the community<\/a> and with the National Jesuit Student Leadership Conference<\/a> online.<\/p>\n \u2013 Original story by Ron Bernas. Follow Detroit Mercy on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>. Have a story idea? Let us know by\u00a0submitting your idea<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sarah Hirschmann is not too disappointed that her senior year at University of Detroit Mercy was cut short by a global pandemic. She\u2019s not even …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":4626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[2545,2491,2489,47,2496,2497,2389,2388,177,571,179,2687,2685,2686,2650,1333,2688],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2020\/05\/Sarah-Hirschmann.jpg?fit=1920%2C1081&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbwnTV-1cB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4625"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4663,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions\/4663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}