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“I had many family members push me toward TAC,” says Max Tittmann (’22), who will be joining the ranks of prefects for the 2022 High Summer Program in California. Yet despite his family’s nudging, Max was unimpressed. “Growing up, I always thought there were two kinds of people: good Catholics, and people who are fun.”

It took an act of God to convince him otherwise. “I primarily blame my attendance at TAC on the prayers of Fr. Sebastian,” he laughs. When Max attended St. Michael’s High School in Silverado, California, Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94)  — an alumnus, a professor of philosophy, and a perennial California Summer Program chaplain — began praying for Max’s change of heart. “Despite my best efforts to be a stubborn, difficult, arrogant, rebellious high schooler,” Max admits, “his prayers overcame my flawed sense of priorities and convinced me that I should go to TAC.”

So Max decided to try the Summer Program — and that was when the prayers started kicking in. “I realized that there’s a way to be both a good Catholic and a fun person,” he recalls. “One of the biggest things from the program was being with a really solid group of guys — great Catholics who thoroughly believed in everything they were doing, but who were also really fun people.” With this new perspective, Max returned to the College as a freshman, and he graduated just a few weeks ago.

On the eve of this year’s Summer Program, Max wants to encourage any skeptical attendees with reservations like his to keep an open mind: “Just seeing how genuinely happy people at the College are,” he says, “can be mind-blowing.”