Make College Count

Why Are You Going to College?

Finding your place in God's story

Where do education and college fit within God's story?

Developing your mind. Loving God with your mind means taking academics seriously, thinking critically, and turning knowledge into wisdom.

Discovering your gifts. College presents a remarkable opportunity to think more deeply about how God has gifted you and how you could use those gifts in service to God and neighbor. When God calls us to participate in his story, he gives us the gifts to play our roles well.

Discerning God's call. Learning is a calling. If we do it well, we are attached to God and we have more to serve him with. This is the vision we need: college is about increasing our serviceability for God.

Who Are You?

Securing your identity in Christ

Transitioning from high school to college creates many challenges, but the challenges to your identity and self-worth may be the hardest of all. What's more, college provides an opportunity to be anonymous, to start over, to create a new identity.

The world tells us: You are what you buy. You are how you look. You are what you do. You are somebody if you are accepted by the "right" people.

On the journey to college, knowing you are a child of God and having your identity secure in him will make all the difference in the world. You are a child of God, completely known and completely loved by him. Your whole identity is not wrapped up in what you buy, what you do or achieve, or what you look like, and you do not have to worry about being accepted by everyone. You are a child of God; no one and nothing can take that away from you.

How Will You Choose a Major?

Putting your faith into action

Students are often overwhelmed and many end up switching majors several times until necessity forces the choice. Studies have shown that most college graduates are working in career fields that are not directly related to their program of study.

Through prayer and conversation with people who know you well, you must always remain open to God's calling and leading. Picking a major may be one of the first times that you truly put your faith into action.

Here are some important questions to ask when deciding on a major: What interests you? How will this major increase your serviceability for God and others? Who have you talked to about choosing a major?

Choosing a major is an important, sometimes stressful decision. But it isn't final. You can certainly change or refine your major along the way.

How Do You Want Your Life to Influence Others?

Leaving a legacy

As a college student, you have much to offer the community in which you live: energy, vision, time. What you learn in college has implications for the way you live in the world.

The question is, what will you do with the things you are learning? Will you simply use your education to get a degree to get a better job for yourself? Or will you begin to make connections between your learning and how you live, in hopes that it will bring about positive transformation in society?

May the words of Jesus guide you each day, may the Holy Spirit grant you the strength and courage to follow his voice, and may God bless you and keep you in college and beyond.