EXTERNAL AFFAIRS EXPERT | recent alumna

Coming into college was like entering a bubble, many people in the same stage of life with similar aspirations. Came from Washington, incredible diversity. I was hungry for the reality of life - beauty, complexity, hardship.

CORPORATE EXECUTIVE | business leader and parent

When I think about my own development, the two institutions that influenced me the most were Chick-fil-a and my university, Oglethorpe. In both cases I was given the opportunity to be challenged AND to contribute. Even better when a mentor is involved.

PASTOR & SCHOLAR

It’s not just that I’m trying to figure out who I am. I’m also with other people asking similar questions at this stage - going through self discovery and discernment communally.

PROFESSOR & DEAN EMERITA

Students are really trying to form who and who’s they are. Whether they realize it or not. I would talk about a balance between mind, body, and spirit. Even if students come to a university, they would come career driven and focused, but eventually you’ll burn out with just that. We were really about trying to look at the whole student.

SENIOR BUSINESS MANAGER | alumnus and business leader

When I was in college, I felt like I was always in the books. It really helped me to have these forums for conversation - Study Center, TH, small groups. Questions like “what’s the purpose of work? How am I caring for those around me?”

PSYCHOLOGIST | mental health and family expert

Any time is a good time to examine your faith. I think the strongest faith is the one that you have examined and made your own. As many diverse backgrounds and friends as you can make, working to understand and not persuade - that’s healthy.

NATIONAL CAMPUS MINISTRY LEADER

Every student generation is shaped by a different moment in culture. They come with different questions, instincts, curiosities, suspicions. But today’s students still have a hunger to know “Is there truth, meaning, justice in the world? Love, beauty or goodness?” There’s certainly plenty of pessimism, but that doesn’t mean the hunger goes away.

STRATEGY CONSULTANT | business leader and parent

When I think about my own children, I think about the world they are going to encounter on the other side of university. I want them to be curious, to learn what they care about and what maybe isn’t worth caring about. If that doesn’t happen at college, I don’t know where else it could happen.

UNIVERSITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Working at a secular university, there can be a perception of antagonism towards faith. What I’ve found is that there are a lot of people at the university that want to talk about their faith, that want to hear talks from a faith perspective, that want to learn.

CLINICAL RESEARCH ASSISTANT | recent alumna

Coming straight from college, there was this added pressure that we had to have everything figured out. Know where we were going next. I’ve since learned that all of that is false. I have a whole life to live, and I’m just getting started!

ATTORNEY | university student parent

As a parent, seeing how much my students want to succeed and the pressures they face. Can’t tell you what it means that there are people welcoming them in to rest and ask important questions.

COLLEGE COUNSELOR

Students are always looking for purpose and meaning in their work. Even if they did a job in finance for a few years, they would make a lot of money and then come back to something that was more meaningful to them.

REGISTERED DIETICIAN | recent alumna

The important thing is to ask questions- “What values make you who you are? Why are they your values? What feeds into them? What genuinely fills your cup?” It needs to be authentic to you. It will count well beyond your time at a university or anywhere.

FILM DIRECTOR & PRODUCER | alumna

Literally all you’re doing all day for school is asking hard questions. So it’s just a natural environment to extend those questions beyond what you’re reading for your history class. These things are also intertwined. I studied the history of the american south, and you can’t do that without asking questions about injustice and terror - without something bigger than yourself.

PROFESSOR & COUNSELOR

The more knowledge I gain, more books I read, more research I do, the more finite I recognize that I am, and that there is something greater. We can explain a lot, but it just gets supernatural at some point.

ENTREPRENEUR | recent alumna

Building community was the biggest way that university served me. So many friends that stood by me and loved me even when I was hard to love. I don’t think I could’ve been bold without those foundational friendships. That changes someone’s life.

PROFESSOR & PUBLIC POLICY EXPERT

It made faith much more accessible to me - the idea that those who were deeply enmeshed in a life of faith were not perfect - they didn’t have all the answers. It’s something that I have always carried with me - that you can ask questions, you can grapple with challenges and at the same time fully embrace the meaning of God in your life.

OPTHALMOLOGIST | parent

As parents we do the best job we can raising our children, but when they go off to college, it’s a pivotal point in their life. It was for me and it is for my children as well. Kids start really thinking for themselves, asking life questions - what do I really believe?

PROFESSOR

We are spiritual beings, and so it's really an incomplete education if you haven't pondered some of these questions of ultimate meaning… For me, it's most important that [students] get that opportunity to think it through and to cultivate the spiritual dimension of who they are.

UNIVERSITY ADMIN

It was a really great test. To me, as a Catholic, to me it was almost like a second confirmation- to ask myself at 25 , “Do I still believe this when it's not easy?”.

STUDENT SERVICES

I love being able to give that back and to provide that guidance or that home or that space and be the adult in the room and just be a listening ear. This was offered to me [as a college student] and I'll never be able to repay it. But maybe with this job I can continue to have those relationships and do that work.