Mia Padon `17 fully embraced the Prep experience as a student—immersed in service through Ancilla (now Agape), engaged in her faith through Search and Magis retreats, and competing as a multi-sport athlete in soccer, track, and basketball. A salutatorian at graduation, she went on to West Point where she played Division I soccer and earned bachelor’s degree in science, and earned her master’s in science in environmental consultancy from the University of Southampton. Today, as a captain in the U.S. Army, she leads a highly specialized team of six EOD professionals responsible for countering weapons of mass destruction threats both domestically and abroad.
As a young woman whose last eight years have unfolded in educational and professional arenas dominated by men, she credits Gonzaga Prep with giving her the confidence and foundation to excel in those spaces. “I was encouraged and empowered and never felt anything other than totally capable to take on the world.”
Read on for more excerpts from Mia’s reflection about her experience at Gonzaga Prep and its continued impact on her life:
When alumna Col. Anne McClain `97 came to speak at the school in 2015, my idea of my future shifted. She spoke of her experience at West Point, being a pilot, and later, her pursuit of becoming an astronaut. She spoke about how the odds were never great, but she had the courage to at least try and “that's where the magic happens.” I had not considered the Academy for college yet, or even playing a Division I sport, but McClain’s audacity, vivacity, and fervor for squeezing the juices out of life made me see just how possible the seemingly impossible could be.
Aside from my wonderful family, Prep was the first real experience that oriented me towards what David Brooks—in his essay titled The Moral Bucket List—calls "eulogy virtues," as opposed to "resume virtues." While Prep ironically also gave me the tools to develop and generate some meaningful resume virtues that allowed me to excel in my career and increased my capability to enter difficult spaces, the emphasis on eulogy virtues was the critical part. It matters much less what you accomplish and much more how and why you accomplish it. Is it for your own self-centered gratification and a means to expand your own ego, or are you approaching small tasks with great love, with a focus on the needs/perspectives of the disenfranchised, and ultimately, for the greater glory of God? The most important lesson Prep taught me is that I was created uniquely and with great love, and the specific characteristics that make Mia, Mia are the very ones God wants to use to help the world - or more aptly, to "set the world on fire."
Prep's education frames the world through a lens of self-reflection and service. While the world pushed a narrative of "go, be successful, make the money, and inflate your sense of self-importance," Prep's education, largely informed by Ignatian Spirituality, offered a different approach that nudged a different set of guidelines to a successful life. It asked: "What are you naturally gifted at? What does the world need that you are suited to offer? Whatever those things are, that's the Holy Spirit within you—go, chase that."
The retreats, primarily Search and Magis, absolutely deepened my faith in a way that fortified me during the periods of my college and Army career that demanded more than it felt like I had. When schoolwork, collegiate soccer, and leadership roles at West Point approached overwhelm, I drew an immense amount of strength from the instilled belief of "The Best is Yet To Come."
If I could share anything with the young women at Prep anything, it's this:
Pursue the things that excite and scare you in equal parts. The reality is that you will never feel completely "ready" to do the hard things, but you will find that starting is the hardest part, and as you go along, you will discover inside of you a self that was so much more capable and resilient than you previously knew. Challenge yourself, and watch yourself blossom at the end of the struggle.
Lukewarm is so lame—regardless of any friend telling you to "do less." Don't do less. Don't half-ass a fitness test or a presentation or not share in class or not apply to something you're interested in because you're scared of looking like a try-hard or failing. Being lukewarm is a waste of the rare gifts and the opportunities you've been given. Failure will always serve you far more than fear. Often, the courage to fail is far more impressive than the actual achievement. Life is precious, fragile and fleeting—don't waste a second trying to watch and judge it from everyone else's point of view.
Forget boxes. Some people might make you feel like you have to act a certain way—whether that's prim and proper or trendy with the right slang and music taste—to be accepted. Boxes are a lie. You can go out dancing on the weekend and stick french fries up your nose to make your friends laugh and then give a sophisticated presentation Monday morning. You can be a committed athlete and also a thoughtful academic, a haughty intellectual and also the friend group's token goofball, a fashionista but also an avid outdoorsman. You can commit your weekdays to software engineering then spend your weekends summiting the Cascades and painting watercolors at the peak. You can do it all and be it all, and still be you. All of these dimensions of you make up the aggregate "you." Your inward self knows no contradiction.
