Day 2: Choosing Student Affairs

When I was attending Warner Pacific College I had some incredible opportunities to interact with the administration in my student leadership roles. I served as student body president my senior year and got to meet with the college's President every two weeks for a 1:1 meeting. He asked me what was on my plate, I asked him what was on his plate and he always ended our time in prayer. I got to sit on the executive leadership meetings as a student representative and learn about budget decisions and balancing competing interests between alumni, the church, the faculty and the staff and of course, students. The administrative world of the college life fascinated me.

During my sophomore year I was a Peer Assistant, or more commonly known as RA. It was a lot of emotional responsibility for a 19 year old leading a hall of 18 year old women. I didn't love it. But I learned from it and still draw A LOT on those experiences- especially when we made the choice to live on for the first three years of our marriage. During that year I started looking more at what the student government group was doing and their work- more mental in my perspective- seemed to be a better fit. I had met a few times with the advisor and when I told Shannon what my interests were she affirmed saying I knew you'd end up over here, some people just have to explore the housing route first. Looking back, that conversation was a touchpoint for the times ahead where I trusted Shannon's insights.

What I now will label as the hazing event outgoing RAs do to incoming RAs.
They did treat us to IHOP, but it was 4 or 5am and they dressed us. 

I came to college as a Business major and I was finding myself loathing Accounting 1 and really enjoying my required Bible as Literature course. Dr. Carver was the most educated person I had met when it came to religious studies and provided a classroom environment where it was ok to ask questions about the text and be knowledgeable about its history and context. This rocked my Sunday school upbringing where it was best to have the ‘right’ answers and where you didn’t know- you needed to trust your faith, not research further. I felt like this time in my life was unique and I wasn’t sure if I’d get that freedom to learn again. I knew what lessons I experienced would always benefit me down the road, regardless of what profession I chose. So I switched into the Religion and Christian Ministry major (and subsequently avoided Accounting 2).

Yup- 2002. 80s themed event with my gals Melissa and Alicia.

My Junior year I was the Treasurer for student government and got to fill that business interest without the structure of the classroom. It worked. I'm naturally inclined towards budgeting and math. I felt like the purposes behind how we spent the student fee money were just and good causes. During this year I think I anticipated that after college I would work in the hospitality industry, something in hotel management (maybe another reflection day on that!). People asked if I was going into ministry since I was a Religion major, I always told them no- just enjoying learning.