My family started on Loyola’s campus.

Mom and Dad met at a party while Mom was a junior, started dating, and less than a year later, got married in Saint Ignatius Chapel on Dec. 16, 1978.

When making my college decision, I only visited Loyola once. I was a sophomore in high school and was visiting family over spring break, and Mom thought she would give my sister and I a more personalized tour of the school. She walked us through all of the buildings that were unlocked, talking about all of her classes and her friends as we made our way through campus. When we got to the chapel, she got so excited and spent the next 20 minutes talking about their wedding.

That was when I knew I wanted to go to Loyola. I wanted that close connection to a school. I also wanted a close connection to the rest of my family, and Loyola is surrounded by family.

Now that I am here, a good part of my time is spent with family. I did not really know my family growing up, only seeing them every two or three years. Now I have dinner with a different aunt every couple of weeks. I have a standing invite to Sunday night dinners and have offers to do laundry in houses all over uptown and Metairie.

Coming here has made the transition to college so much easier. I left all of my friends, my boyfriend, and my family back home. It would have been so easy to wallow in homesickness but having all of this family around makes me feel like I never left home, I just found a second one.

I also have learned a lot of information about my parents coming here. I walk by their first house all the time, and I actually found them in some of the archives in the library. My mom was a member of Pi Mu Epsilon in 1978, and I remember calling her and getting very excited over the fact that she was in a sorority in college, because I did not think that would be something we had in common. She laughed and told me she was not a member of a sorority but was a member of a math fraternity. That was less surprising.

The most surprising fact about my parents was that my dad was the president of the marketing association back in the 1980s. He always said that he never got involved, so learning that he was so involved on campus that he was president of an entire organization did not match up with the image I had of him growing up.

As I continue at Loyola, I am excited to create my own chapter of the Sampson legacy, especially now that I have so much of an understanding of how deep it runs.