Four and half years ago, I stepped onto Harding’s campus very unsure of myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be at Harding. To make things worse, I interviewed for a scholarship the summer before I moved to campus and the lady conducting the interview said I would never make it at Harding.<\/p>\n
I was home-schooled from kindergarten to my senior year and according to this lady, I would have problems not only socially, but academically. I probably wouldn’t finish out my first year. To say that I didn’t feel welcomed would be an understatement.<\/p>\n
Although I had been home-schooled, my first week of classes still went like anyone else’s. I was nervous, but so was every other freshman. I quickly started building relationships with not only fellow students, but my professors as well. Over time I became involved with multiple organizations and campus events. For someone who was supposed to have problems socially because she was homeschooled, it didn’t seem to be an issue.<\/p>\n
Academics and classes didn’t seem to be an issue either (other than a slight problem in my chemistry lab when I knocked the Bunsen burner over … while it was lit). I was actually doing well at Harding unlike what I had been told. This wasn’t the only hesitation I had with attending Harding, though.<\/p>\n
Having gone to the same church for most of my life, I came to Harding as a last shot at faith. The church I grew up in was anything but loving. My parents taught me the importance of church and having my own faith. They tried to teach me about the love of a church family, but I simply didn’t feel any of those things when I went to church. I knew what the other teens in the youth group did, I knew the hypocrisy of the members. In Bible classes, we were taught rules, do’s and don’ts. It was like God was just keeping tally of what I did wrong. The church wasn’t appealing to me at all and I promised myself Harding was either going to prove to me faith was worth it or I was forgetting it all together.<\/p>\n
The first day of my freshman year, I sat in chapel while we sang “Mighty to Save.” People were sitting around me singing this song like they believed it and really meant it. I soon realized they did mean it. In my freshman Bible class I was reminded why I even believed in the first place. The friends I made were genuine about their faith. The entire Harding community showed love and compassion. The teachers didn’t care that I had been home-schooled, they still had faith in me that I would succeed and do well and people loved me because they truly cared.<\/p>\n
Next Saturday, I will walk across the Benson stage and receive my diploma. I can’t believe that at one time I didn’t want to come to Harding, because Harding has taught me so many things. It taught me to have the confidence in myself that I needed when strangers questioned my ability. It taught me that God and his children are loving and compassionate. I will never question my choice to come to this school. Harding changed my life and I will forever be thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four and half years ago, I stepped onto Harding’s campus very unsure of myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t even sure if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[268],"class_list":["post-3313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-hurricane-florence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}