Let me first just say that, to be completely accurate, this is actually just the beginning of this particular story, contrary to the title of the post. Although, it is pretty long, which I felt warranted adding the "whole" rather than the "beginning of." You were warned.
Thus far, the majority of my blog entries have not really been related to "the big adventure," (aka going to Liberty University this fall) as it has not actually started yet. But I realized that this particular adventure has a lot of background information involved and that I should let you all in on it. So, here is my effort to explain my thought process on the whole
Liberty thing.
First off, I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ's crucifixion, and subsequent resurrection, saved me from my sins and that I would be hopelessly lost without His grace and love. I also love church…I think that coming together as a believing community to care for each other and for those outside of the church is really important. That being said, I also think that there is a lot of bad that has been done by members of the church in the name of God, which shouldn’t have been done in association with God at all. Actually, some of it just shouldn't have been done at all.
This has forever frustrated me because it gives all Christians a bad name and it is not an accurate representation of what we believe (this subject could fill many blog entries, so for now I'll leave it at that). Some Christians are extremely judgemental and unforgiving.
If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have told you that Liberty University fell perfectly into this category. For those of you who aren't familiar with the school, it's a very conservative, Christian university located in Lynchburg, VA (I know, the name couldn't be worse, although I hear it's actually named after John Lynch, the founder of the town). This is Liberty's offical code of conduct, known as "The Liberty Way." All students are expected to follow it and there is a reprimand system in place for broken rules. A student receives a certain number of reprimands or "reps" when caught breaking a rule, depending on the gravity of the rule and the situation.
Before I knew very much about it, I had no desire to be involved in anything that was remotely close to fundamentalist, and on paper, Liberty sounded like just that. I had heard horror stories of extremely strict rules that had to be adhered to, and that sounded to me like a huge lack of grace, which seems a more than a little hypocritical since, as Christians who recognize how much grace Christ has shown to us, how ridiculous would it be not to show some of the same to others? Needless to say, I was not interested in attending a school like Liberty, and I didn’t understand why so many people did (approx. 13,000 students will be joining me this fall).
Fast forward a few years to high school graduation time. Everyone was frantically trying to decide what to do with their next chapter in life…which school, which job, etc. By this point, it hadn’t worked out for me to go away to the school of my choice (way too expensive), so I went with Plan B: get a full time job and save some money and enroll in community college part time. A lot of my friends chose to go to Liberty. And strangely enough, by a very complicated turn of events, I became friends with a few current Liberty students who lived near me, including my very amazing, very handsome now-boyfriend (seriously, he's the best).
From their stories, this school that I thought was a big, judgmental group of faculty exacting their over-the-top rules on a bunch of college kids, actually sounded like a pretty good school. Their academic programs were far-reaching and highly acclaimed, their student activities were extensive, exciting, and fun, and their rules were not nearly as bad as they seemed (it’s all in how strict your RA is).
After visiting my boyfriend and friends there many times over the two years following my high school graduation, the whole idea didn’t seem nearly as bad. I learned that Liberty's administrators actually do show a lot more grace than they get publicity for, proven by a few first-hand accounts of students that I'd met who should have gotten kicked out, but were given second chances.
Still, I wasn't completely convinced. Personal freedom has always been something that I think is extremely important, and while I have always tried to use a reasonable amount of self-control and to live a Christian lifestyle, the rules at Liberty still seemed a little too intense. However, after a couple years of working full time and studying and going to community college classes in my spare time, going away to a four year school college and having that whole experience, even at a school like Liberty, was looking more and more appealing. So, sometime last fall, I filled out my application.
After I was accepted (not a difficult task, by the way), I found out the Liberty has a huge alumni base that donates a lot to the school, which, combined with co-founder Jerry Falwell’s (I know, I know, more on that later) multi-million dollar life insurance policy, allows the school to give exceptional financial aid. It turns out this was no different for me, and going to a private, out of state school would end up costing me a quarter of what it would cost to go to any state school in my state. This came as a huge surprise/relief since I've often been frustrated that so many other Christian colleges cannot or do not give nearly this amount of financial aid.
So there you have it, I guess. So many thoughts, prayers, and scholarships later, I found myself confirming my attendance for the Fall 2009 semester as a Liberty student. So we'll see how things go.
I’m not living on campus, so I won’t have a RA (resident advisor--the main source of rule-enforcement within the student body), but I’m still a little bit nervous since Liberty’s ultra-strict reputation precedes it. I also know that there have been a lot of doors opened for me to go there without taking out any loans thus far, and I don’t believe that that’s a coincidence. Besides, if an ultra-liberal, Brown University student can do it, then so can I! I’ll keep you updated on how it goes once everything starts up! For now I’m going to enjoy my summer!
