| Student Writer: Victoria Calderon

There is no one true “college experience”. No one person can share the same impressions they had from going to college with someone else. It’s completely about what you choose to do with your time here. So, let’s be real with ourselves, student to student.

People act pretty fake in high school. Shocking, I know.

Not only that, but in high school you’re confined to one building and forced to interact with the same people every day. There’s a choking sense of routine that feels inescapable. While attending high school, you were forced to dumb yourself down for the simple acts of fitting in and doing what you’re told.

This sense of wanting to hide yourself as a means of fitting in isn’t something that just fades away. It takes time to let yourself be open about who you are. However, the right environment can make this time spent learning all the more comfortable.

I firmly believe that Brewton-Parker College is that right environment. For me, this small campus is the perfect sliver of a world in which I can properly grow. The Biblical worldviews of the professors and students, has helped me grow in so many ways in the short year I have been attending.

This growth has opened my eyes to so many attributes of my own character that I was either blind to or simply never previously thought about. The time I’ve spent here has opened my eyes to how I should interact with people. It all boils down to how you present yourself. When I was in high school, I spent all four years not wanting to be around anyone. Then I realized very quickly that the world doesn’t react well to that kind of attitude. Back then, even though I spent those four years wanting to be alone, I was never truly alone. I still had friends I could laugh and cry with. As well as friends who told me secrets; friends and other students who were willing to take time out of their day to be around me in return. Because just like myself, they felt the need to fit in and befriend as many people as necessary.

That isn’t how friendships are built in college. They aren’t built out of the anxiety of being alone. They’re more genuine than that. They’re built out of the fact that that other person wants to spend time with you, and sees you as a valuable person.

That being said, there’s also the other end of the social spectrum that must be acknowledged. The opposite end being the situations where you find yourself secluded from other students. Isolation is so easy to obtain; it’s nearly to the point of being difficult to avoid.

It’s easy to ignore other students – to go about your campus life alone. It’s even easier for other people to avoid talking to you. While this privacy may seem peaceful, it’s poisonous to your wellbeing as a student. The option that comes with ease doesn’t always mean it’s the option with the best outcome.

Being at Brewton-Parker has taught me the value of unity, and has allowed me to truly value my relationships with others. And I’m not just talking about my relationships with fellow students. I also mean the professional relationships I have with the faculty and staff. As a student, I feel like the professors here don’t talk down to me. They respect me as a learning and growing person. Their Christian views make it easy to be open about any issue that I may be having, whether inside or out of the classroom.

Looking back, I realize now just how confined I was in my way of thinking. Being at a Baptist Christian college has allowed me to grow in more ways than I feel I could have anywhere else. People feel real here. You can have real relationships with others and they in response will be real with you. College relationships aren’t about how popular you are – they’re about how real you can be with others and yourself.