By J1 Reporter Danielle Carrol

Networking for freshmen looks different this year due to the uncertainty of these times. Two freshman girls are starting off the year differently based on their longevity in the Marian community.

Maggie Tynan is no stranger to Marian, her mom, aunt, and two of her cousins attended Marian so she has been coming to events at Marian since she was a little girl. In the seventh grade, she attended the Trivia Night and attended Mini Surprise Night in the eighth grade. 

“I enjoyed the big sister events a lot,” Tynan said after attending events such as the July Bash. She explained that she finally felt the reality of becoming a Marian Freshman. Marian events played a major role in her meeting new friends and networking with different types of people.

On the flip side of the coin, there is Madison Terranova who just moved from Sleepy Hollow, Ill. two weeks before the beginning of school. Despite having her cousin Delaney Foley as an alumna and her other cousin Katy Foley as current sophomore, she had only been on a Marian tour and had not attended any other events.

Since Terranova was focused on moving in the summer, she could not attend the only big sister event held in person in the summer, which was the July Bash and her first introduction to Marian was through the hybrid model, this has been challenging for Terranova because unlike Tynan, she does not have her network of friends quite yet.

Marian switched from the hybrid model to the whole school going back at once on Oct. 12, but this has not improved much for Terranova because she has only been able to meet three new people with the transition. “I still feel divided between people…because I only lived here two weeks before school started,” Terranova said. She explains that she feels most people already have their friend groups from middle school and she doesn’t have that.

On the bright side, Terranova says that being on the golf team has helped her to meet other people in the A-L group as well as some upperclassmen. For people like Terranova, Recruitment Director Mrs. Molly Woodman said she hopes there will be some big sister events during the CAB blocks and Freshman Retreat to help girls bond with their class as well as their big sisters.