The hard finality of mathematical calculations. The life-saving ministrations of a medical doctor. The warm and magical embrace of Spanish literature. The exhilaration of musical performance.
These were the considerations that fired the imagination of a young Kristen Bitterly as she completed her high school years and prepared to head to South Bend, Indiana, to enroll at Notre Dame and join the ranks of the Fighting Irish.
It was a suitable choice for the young Ms. Bitterly, the product of an Irish Catholic family with dashes of Germanic and Austrian influences sharing the bloodstream. What wasn’t so congruous was Bitterly’s ice-and-fire decision to double-major in economics and Spanish literature.
“I’m shooting for the stars here,” she concedes. “You don’t want to do it modestly.”
As her collegiate years advanced, she headed to the Notre Dame Center for Career Development and applied for various programs focused on her areas of study. One