Colleen Mackin is a baker and recipe developer in her spare time, especially around Christmas. She loves to experiment with recipes that are gluten-free, sugar-free, and sometimes egg or dairy-free, but good-tasting and not too hard to make. Whether it is recipes or literary studies, Colleen loves to learn, and she hopes to share and inspire others with that passion after graduation as a teacher. She has applied to the Notre Dame ACE program and hopes to begin teaching as soon as possible. Once she has completed that program, she hopes to develop her education in English and Irish Studies by obtaining her Ph.D. and ultimately working in some form of academia or research.
In addition to her English Major she is getting a minor in Sport, Media and Culture. She finds her English major “impacts and intersects with” all of her academic interests, and likewise feels her SMAC classes provide more points of interest in her English classes. Colleen also studies the Irish language and the Irish literary tradition, and sees many points of overlap with her English major and her thesis which is focused on the Irish writer Clair Keegan’s “Small Things Like These.” Colleen say’s, “English has allowed me to feed my curiosity and make many broad connections with other fields of study.”
Colleen is the Executive Producer for PEMCo, Notre Dame’s only student-run musical and theatre group, and is a Resident Assistant for Ryan Hall.