All through high school, I thought about college. I'd visited friends at various schools, just checking out the campus scene, but I wasn't too serious about it until my junior year. Then my sister went off to college, and the idea of life after high school suddenly became real to me.

So during the last quarter of my junior year, I really sat down and thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I prayed a lot about it, talked to my parents about it, and started researching colleges that interested me.

When it came time to get advice from people, my parents were by far the most helpful—especially my dad. He was cool to talk to because he wanted me to have a fun time and he wanted to make sure I took my education seriously. He really wanted the best for me.

As I was looking at colleges and majors, Dad helped me make a plan to get where I needed to be career-wise. Since I was already interested in engineering, Dad encouraged me to look into that as a major. Besides, my grandfather was an engineer and my dad works in an engineering-related job, too. But most of all, Dad knew that engineering fit my character traits. I'm big into math, and I also like computers.

I've enjoyed engineering ever since I took an engineering class my freshman year of high school. I really liked it, so sophomore year I took a drafting class. Then junior year I took an architecture class, and I entered a house design contest. I won, and the house I designed was actually built. I got to go to the open house and give a little speech and everything.

I had a few other reasons for focusing on engineering, too. The guidance office at my high school gave all the sophomores a career-search test to see what kind of jobs we might be interested in. It told me what I thought it would: engineering, I also talked to some of my teachers, and they said pretty much the same thing.

So I was excited about the engineering field. I knew that would figure into my college plans somehow, but my college choice was still wide open.

Because I had some idea of what I wanted to study, I used that as a starting point for deciding which colleges to think about. Getting a good education was the most important thing to me, so first I wanted to look for a school with a strong engineering program.

I also thought about the size of school I wanted to go to. I preferred a smaller school where I could get to know people better, but I was willing to go to a bigger school if it was the best place for engineering.

The next thing on my mental list was convenience, as in walking distances and how close things are on campus—another reason I was leaning toward a smaller college. I also wanted the college I chose to be in a town or city where there were things to do. I wanted to be able to walk off campus and get to places like a grocery store or a restaurant.

Being fairly close to home was also an issue for me. I didn't want to go more than eight hours away by car, so I kind of drew a circle on a map and only looked at schools inside that circle.

Another thing I wanted to check out was the activities offered, like ministries, sports, intramurals and clubs. I wanted to get involved in several different things in college—maybe a running club or biking club, maybe student government. I'd never been in anything like that before, but I thought it might be fun to try.

Most of all, I wanted to go to a college where I felt like I fit in. For example, I'd visited my sister at her school four or five times, and I just didn't click with the people there. I didn't feel like I could be myself. I wanted to make sure the students at whatever school I chose were the kind of people I could feel comfortable with.

By the summer before my senior year, I was focusing on three schools with good engineering programs. My first choice was a small, Christian college that met all my requirements, but I kept looking at the other two schools in case my first choice didn't work out.

To look a bit deeper, I decided to do some Internet research. First I went to a search engine and typed in "electrical engineering," which gave me over a million entries. So I thought, OK, that's a little too broad.

Then I typed in "Christian colleges" and got a much shorter list. I'd already heard of most of these schools, but I did get the addresses of their Web sites.

After these broad searches, I went directly to the Web sites of the colleges I was interested in. I found all the information I could about the schools' engineering programs, which was a lot more than what was in the colleges' viewbooks. For one of the schools I was looking at, I was able to print out the whole engineering curriculum, complete with the program description and suggested class offerings.

By the end of that summer, I had visited two of the three schools on my list. I walked around each campus, but I didn't spend too much time because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to either of them. Both were public schools, and I worried about the "anything goes" attitude I'd picked up from people I talked to.

I knew college would be the time in my life when I'd be figuring out who I was, and I really wanted a Christian influence during that time. For me, a Christian college seemed like the best option. So I narrowed my focus to one school: Cedarville College in Cedarville, Ohio.

I filled out my Cedarville application and sent it in by the second week of my senior year. A few weeks later, I'd been accepted.

When I got my acceptance letter back from Cedarville, I was fairly sure I wanted to go there. But I didn't want to finalize anything until I could spend some time on campus. I called the admissions office and scheduled an October visit.

I wasn't too worried about a lot of the details—dorm rooms, food service, and that kind of stuff. I knew I could pretty much adapt to whatever. But I did want to make sure I could click with the other students at Cedarville, and I did. I quickly found out that Cedarville was my kind of environment, a place where I could fit in. Walking across campus, I thought to myself, I like this.

On my visit I stayed in a dorm, which was a lot of fun. The next day, I went to chapel, and I really liked it. It was laid back and informal, but spiritually alive. The students seemed excited about their faith.

Of course, I checked out the engineering department. I looked around at the facilities, talked with a professor and sat in on a class. The class was a nice size—only 12 students.

Visiting Cedarville totally confirmed my decision to go there. I just liked everything about it. And I felt like this was where God wanted me to go.

That was a little over three years ago. I'm a senior at Cedarville now, and more certain than ever that I made the right decision. It's a great school, and I've met incredible people here. I've been involved in a lot of fun stuff like being an RA and running track. I've also been an AWANA leader at my church, which I've really enjoyed.

I'll be graduating in June, and I'm still planning to find a job in engineering. I feel confident that my classes and professors have prepared me well for whatever may be thrown my way. I've learned a lot since I've been here—about myself and what it means to be excellent in my work. Cedarville has definitely helped me take steps toward becoming the kind of person I want to be.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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