A scholar’s journey: International student Lipe Fernandes cultivates an intellectual life through PLS
When Lipe Fernandes considered his education after high school, he wanted something more than career prep.
He wanted the whole college experience — something that would develop him as a person, not just his resume.
“Education shouldn’t be only a utilitarian thing,” he said. “In college, you have the opportunity to explore more than just what you think you’ll be doing in the future.”
Fernandes’ appetite for something more drove him to leave his home country of Brazil to study in the U.S., and it’s why he’s glad he picked the University of Notre Dame.
“I found something where I can cultivate both an intellectual life and a practical life,” he said.
As an incoming student, he initially majored in economics and philosophy to better understand the forces shaping current social issues. But as he learned more about what he wanted from his undergraduate education, he swapped economics for political science — a field more qualitative and flexible. But there was still something missing.
“At Notre Dame, we have to take philosophy classes, theology classes, literature, languages,” he said. “And I realized I wanted something that didn’t treat them separately, but tried to unify them.”
In his second semester, Fernandes took a University Seminar class — Catholicism & the Disciplines: The Catholic Intellectual Life — with Thomas Stapleford, an associate professor in the Program of Liberal Studies. Stapleford saw how much Fernandes enjoyed the class’ interdisciplinary approach and encouraged him to consider PLS.
Interdisciplinary by nature, the PLS major gives students exposure to the arts, history, literature, natural science, philosophy, politics, and theology through six “great books” seminars. Students also take tutorials that delve into specific disciplines of the liberal arts.
It was just what Fernandes was looking for.
“PLS isn’t just the academic part of philosophy — it’s giving me the tools to think about anything in a philosophical way,” he said.
Now majoring in PLS and political science, Fernandes spends his days exploring justice and equality through Dante’s Divine Comedy or freedom and humanity through St. Augustine’s Confessions. In conversations with his classmates, he encounters a broad range of perspectives on topics from current events to what it means to be human.
Through PLS, Fernandes has also reframed his political science classes, saying it simply brings similar ideas into the present by thinking about philosophy, history, psychology, and other liberal arts in the context of American politics and international relations.
In spring 2026, the now-senior further pursued his love of philosophy and PLS while studying abroad in Rome. He completed a philosophy and theology program at the Thomistic Institute, an organization that strengthens the Catholic intellectual tradition rooted in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also took classes on metaphysics and the history of intellectual culture, as well as Italian and medieval art.
During his time in Rome, he was happy to learn that his dorm was only a few blocks from Notre Dame Rome, with the Colosseum and the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran also nearby. It was a piece of home away from home, he said, as his love for Notre Dame’s campus and community grew alongside his intellectual formation over the last three years.
“Notre Dame has this notion of a university as a little world where you live,” he said. “It’s not just the place you go to school.”
Back in Indiana, Fernandes loves participating in quintessential student experiences — attending football games, joining campus snowball fights, walking around the lakes, and Grotto visits with fellow residents of Keough Hall (followed by either milkshakes or root beer floats in the dorm kitchen). He’s grown in his faith by studying theology, by talking with Keough’s priest-in-residence, and by sharing his beliefs with his friends. Every day, he’s trying new things and meeting new people, his character and his intellect developing in tandem.
That’s what college should be, Fernandes said, and it’s why he’s taking the extra step to make PLS more accessible for others.
This summer, Fernandes brought a bit of what he learned back to São Paulo, where a local priest has started a classical school for young kids. He has helped run the school and create curriculum that taps into his experiences as a student in the College of Arts & Letters.
“If you study things that are good for you as a human person, you can not only become better and happier for yourself, but you can also learn to become a citizen,” Fernandes said. “You know how to perform your duties and be good to each other as brothers and sisters — in your house, your city, your church, your country.”
Originally published by at al.nd.edu on August 21, 2026.