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我的非传统返校之旅
新的篇章开始了
I had been out of high school for nearly six years when I started to think about going to college. 你可以说我交换了传统的路径。 I got married right out of high school, started a family, and got into the working world of restaurants and blue-collar jobs. It was great, and I have a lot of respect for careers in the trades, but as the years passed I began to learn more about myself. I hit seasons of deep doubt about many things I had never questioned before. I found how deeply I loved literature and philosophy and the process of wrestling with ideas. Through this discovery I came to two conclusions: I wanted to dedicate more of my life to reading and writing both for my own sake and for the sake of raising children in an increasingly confused world and I felt I would be well suited to a career involving connecting with people, like a high school teacher. So off I went to pursue jumping back into the academic world.
权衡选项：选择一条路径
When my wife and I began scheming about the transition to school, we considered first the option of moving away from Chattanooga and whether or not to pursue a larger, secular state university versus a smaller, private Christian college. In the midst of considering this, we visited a church that we fell in love with, making nearly instant and deep friendships there which prompted us to stay in town. All I had to settle now was whether I wanted to attend a Christian college or not. After living in Chattanooga for four years, I had met a few Covenant graduates in different work settings. Many of them impressed me as excellent and thoughtful individuals and struck me as the kind of people I would like to think deeply with.
培养平衡：协调责任
Of course, I knew it was going to feel like performing a juggling act on a treadmill to jump back into school at the age of 26, married, with toddlers. I was pumped for sure but also slightly terrified. 的re were all sorts of concerns I had thinking about trying to manage a packed schedule of working, studying, keeping a house even slightly organized, and managing two sweet, lovely, yet sometimes monstrous children. 我们有足够的钱吗？ 我有足够的时间通过我的课程吗？ Will our schedule as a family even be compatible with class schedules? 我们会保持理智吗？ I'm exaggerating a bit, but the fact remains that my wife and I had quite a bit of uncertainty going into a four-year commitment to a completely different pace of life with many challenges we knew we couldn’t foresee.
在圣约找到社区和支持
My experience so far at Covenant as a non-traditional student has been one of support, respect, and challenge. 的 student body has been surprisingly engaged with me despite the fact that I live off campus and am a bit older. 的 professors have been encouraging and always available to talk and get into the weeds of ideas, and the administration has made my narrow schedule work. I remember sitting down with Rodney Miller in the records office at the beginning of my first semester. He looked me in the eyes and said, “What you’re trying to do is going to be tough and I genuinely care about you, your family, and,” he said with a smile, “yours and your wife’s sanity. I want to do whatever I can to make this work for you.” I knew then that Covenant would be a great fit for me as I pursue a degree in the stage of life that I’m in.
All in all, Covenant has been a caring community that has diligently created an academically rich experience accessible to people, like myself, in different life circumstances.