Almost a year ago my mom drove me down to Utah, helped me
load all of my belongings into an ancient apartment bedroom, and left me to
experience my first year of school. While I was a bit nervous for college I was
full of excitement! I was taking the baby steps into becoming an adult. My
ideas of what to expect from college were along the lines of this: "I'll
make some friends, go to class, and get a degree." However, I never could
have imagined that this year would teach me much more than just knowledge that
comes from the textbooks for my general education classes. My first year at
Brigham Young University taught me much about life, people, Heavenly Father,
and, most importantly, myself. I did not learn all of these lessons through one
person or one event. This year has been a mix-and-match collage of experiences
that have helped me learn and grow. I honestly couldn't explain everything that
I have learned this year; if I did that this blog post would be a book. So I
want to highlight three things that I learned from a kind professor, a friend,
and from, most importantly, Heavenly Father.
A Caring Professor:
One of the first
classes I took my first semester was a statistics class. Let me tell you this:
I am not a math wiz. I have no love for math and logic. Never have, and,
most-likely, never will. When I first started my statistics class I fell in
love with it. Not because I loved the material by any means. The material was
stressful, difficult, and confusing to me. I loved this class because I had a phenomenal
professor who was entertaining, smart, and a good man who cared for the success
of his students. Regardless of his clear instructions and teachings I still was
struggling with the material during the first couple weeks of class. As time
passed I realized that the first test was coming up and I was not prepared with
the knowledge necessary to do well. So I put on my "big-girl-pants"
and decided to go get help from my professor. He was very understanding and
took a large amount of time on many different days to help me after class
understand the material. A few weeks later I was sitting in the testing center
taking my first statistics test. I had worked hard, studied, and put in the
effort for this test. As I went to receive my grade I felt completely happy
when I saw that my grade for the test was about a 74% ( I can't remember the
exact score but it was around there.) Yes, I was a bit bummed that I hadn't
gotten higher but, as the saying goes, "C's get degrees" and I was
happy with my grade. However, I still wanted to go get help on this test to see
what I did wrong. I went to see my professor who looked up my test score. For
some reason I felt I had to explain myself to him-I told him that I wasn't
upset by my score because, quite honestly, that was the best I could do. Not a
second had gone by after I had said that when my professor did something that
utterly shocked me. The man, literally, yelled at me (loudly) "NO!"
I was so taken aback by this! What professor yells this at
their student?! My professor, very loudly, continued to yell and said "NO.
Kelsey, you are better than this! I know it! And we are going to work harder so
that you will do better!"
What do you say to this? You can't disagree with a professor
that does this. I'll spare you the details, but in short, I continued to work
with my professor, learn, and at the end of the year I received a high B letter
grade; something I could not have done on my own.
Now, this experience has stuck with me the whole year. This
man, who did not know me on any personal level at all, saw past my limited (and
non-existent) talents in statistics and took the time to help me develop,
learn, and succeed. And you know what the funny thing was? He always followed
up with me. On other tests he would look up my test scores and if I did well he
would shoot me the thumbs up. Or when I was in class he would call on me
randomly to get me to answer questions so I would learn and develop. As I
ponder why this experience and teacher helped me so much I have realized this:
We all are "better than this," as my professor would put it. We each
have a very high potential that we are not aware of. We have to ability to push
ourselves. I ,mistakenly, was ready to accept my low test score and just accept
any future low scores I would receive. But this caring professor taught me that
we can not just accept our average successes. We always have room to improve
and do better and we each have the potential to do better than we ever
imagined. Thanks to this teacher I now know that I have more potential to do
things and I have the capability to do hard tasks in life that will stretch and
push me.
Friends:
Throughout this year I have learned a lot about people. At
school you interact with random individuals. At church you socialized and get
to know fellow single young adults. There are people everywhere in our lives.
Each person has a story, a perspective,
opinions....People are beautiful in their own way. They have things to offer.
This year I learned The importance of people.
The best way to explain what I have learned this year is to
tell you something that one of my best friends taught me near the end of the
year. Even though he taught me this at the end of the year I think that his
words best describe what I have learned. My friend, Jay, and I were hanging out
and taking a drive. I can't even remember how we got on the subject, but, we
started discussing life and the people in our lives. As we started talking Jay
said something that really stuck out to me. He expressed his belief that we are
on this earth to learn. He told me that
every person we meet and every experience we have we can learn something from.
I think that these beliefs sum up in words what I learned this year. I have met
so many incredible individuals throughout the year. Some I have gotten to know
on a deeper level and some i have just had brief interaction with. But this
year I have come to understand that the people around us; the strangers, the
family members, acquaintances, and dear friends, are all placed in our lives so
we can learn something. Whether it be good or bad we have the ability to learn
something from each person we meet. That means that we, in turn, have the
ability to teach people in our lives something. It can be good or bad, that choice
is up to us. I know that the people placed in my life have taught me much about
endurance, overcoming struggles, learning to love people purely, and other life
long lessons and characteristics that I can develop in my life better. While
this year I received a top-notch education I feel I have learned just as much
from the people around me pertaining to life as my books and lectures have
taught me in an actual classroom.
Heavenly Father and His Son:
How can I express what I have learned this year about my
Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ? Let me tell you this to start off: It
is scary being in college as a freshman. You really don't know what to do, how
things work, how to take care of yourself, or, basically, anything. And it is
especially intimidating at BYU where the campus is huge, there are tons of
people, and the students are all very smart and determined. It is easy to
believe that you are just part of the crowd; someone who is not noticed or
cared about. There were times this year where, even in a crowd of people, I
felt very alone. For the first semester especially, I did not feel I was making
friends (aside from my roommates who were all fantastic). I didn't feel like
people really knew or cared who I was.There were times where I felt pretty
lonely and distressed (especially when it came to school subjects I was not
good at.)
However, this year
has taught me, without doubt, that there is someone who understands completely
and utterly every bad emotion I have ever had. I know I have a Savior, Jesus
Christ, who has suffered for my sufferings. I know He understands what I am
going through. I know this because I have found myself on my knees praying for
relief and comfort when I needed it. I know that His Father, my Heavenly Father,
is very aware of me as well. I know that as I have prayed for guidance and
comfort I have received it.
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