Mustafa Hess has made the most of his four years on campus, though he admits he didn’t start taking advantage of all Notre Dame has to offer until his junior year.
“It wasn’t until spring semester of junior year where I was thinking to myself, I’ve been here for two and a half years, I don’t have that much time left. … I want to set a goal for myself of how I can enjoy myself and how I can meet other people by forcing myself to do that.”
And so he did.
Since diving into the array of events and activities available to students, he has become known among his peers in Dunne Hall for his “side quests.” When he’s not deeply invested in researching the causes and conditions of human rights violations and mass atrocities through the , he can be found going to Irish folk music performances, checking out the observatory in Jordan Hall or attending residence hall events.
A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Hess initially found the work-life balance of college challenging, but he came up with a concrete plan to improve his social life.
“It was really a matter of switching my perspective on work and trying to balance my relationships and learning that there will always be an amount of work that you can do, and it’s kind of endless. You have to accept what you can do, and that what you do is enough, and spend that time and energy with people trying to connect and have good relations.”
The Round Rock, Texas, native majoring in global affairs with minors in peace studies and French has trekked across the United States and Europe through opportunities afforded by Notre Dame. Summer 2024 brought him to Brest, France, for six weeks at a language immersion school. Later, he joined a tour through the American South with the , focusing on important civil rights landmarks: Jackson, Mississippi; Selma, Alabama; Birmingham, Alabama; and Memphis, Tennessee. Two other history courses took him back to France, then Belgium, Germany and Poland. Those latter experiences touring Holocaust sites proved instrumental for connecting his research to its real-world examples.
One of the biggest influences on Hess during his time on campus was training and competing in the annual boxing tournament, which raises money for the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh. His original goal for his senior year was to be a resident assistant, and boxing was not on his radar. Plans changed — he did not become a resident assistant — but his endless motivation didn’t.
“I was thinking, ‘OK, if I don’t become an RA, I’ll do Bengal Bouts my senior year.’ And that was, for the most part, a joke,” Hess said.
“Boxing was the first time that I really felt pushed to do something. Hearing from the coaches, them giving us workouts and telling us things to do — both back at home and then also here for the men’s boxing club — has this aspect that you’re getting pushed to a certain limit. Because if someone is telling you to do this, you believe you can do it, and that push and that struggle was something that really attracted me.”
Though his Bengal Bouts run ended in the quarterfinal, he is grateful for the community he formed through this new experience and looks forward to what challenges he can tackle next as a consultant at IBM in Chicago.
The memories and friendships he formed at Dunne Hall are some of his most treasured moments from his time on campus. “Getting to know most people in your dorm of over 200 people is just a very nice feeling and a very welcoming sense. … That was one of the main pulls for me to stay on campus and live as an on-campus senior, because that’s been the core of my social life.”