Editor’s Note: Last fall our first year HDS students made the decision to join our community amid uncertainty brought on by a global pandemic. In this post, MDiv student, Cassie Montenegro, shares some of the lessons she learned in her first semester at HDS.
Post by Cassie Montenegro MDiv’23
Like some of you, I found myself applying to divinity school after taking a less than linear route. I’m a trained attorney, experienced teacher, and former TEDx organizer. I am also a queer cis-gendered Cuban American woman who was raised on café con leche, the Rosary, and Tibetan chanting. And I am a first year MDiv with a penchant for Religion and Literature and a love of sacred space. However, it took me about six and a half years to muster the courage to apply to Harvard Divinity School. As I find myself a few weeks into my second semester, I would do well to remind myself of the lessons learned last semester about the Harvard community, about student life on Zoom, and about myself.
- There is no “right time” or “wrong time” to go to Divinity school. Although joining the HDS community would quickly prove one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, when the time came to leave a profession I loved, to begin a new vocation amidst a global pandemic, the decision was not an easy one. Should I try to defer? Take a reduced course-load? However, the more I networked with and spoke to other current and admitted students, especially those within my Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, I knew I had found my people, my place.
