Franciscan University of Steubenville Top Questions

Some things I would advise my past self about college life would be, to meet upper classmen, be more outgoing, and get to know your professors. It is a good idea to meet upper classmen because they know all about the campus and what there is to do for fun. It is also good to be outgoing, no one wants to just sit in their room and be bored. Go out and make friends! It is easy to find other freshmen who are in the same situation as yourself. Also, get to know your professors! the classes become a lot easier and more fun when you are comfortable asking the professors for help when you need it.

I have been able to grow in both my knowledge of the world at large and in my faith. I am also learning so much about my future career field of mental health. I have also met some great people from across the country that I wouldn't have the opportunity to meet any other way. Franciscan University claims to be "Academically Challenging, Passionately Catholic." These were two things that were most important to me when choosing a college and in the two-and-a-half years there, I have found it to be true. It has fulfilled its promise and has helped me to grow in so many amazing ways.

I transferred to Franciscan University last fall. If I were to sum up the experience in one word, "overwhelmed" would fit it quite nicely. In the midst of being swamped in a marshland of unfamiliar faces, which was tagged to a seemingly endless list of names, I trotted around campus, attemping to familiarize myself with the new surroundings and acadamia. My wild disorientation was eventually tamed by my fellow classmates. By the end of my first semester, I had gleaned an education that had been both challanging and rewarding. Being Catholic, I also found the campus permitted my spiritual life to flourish and thrive. The authentic joy I experienced is exclusive among the Franciscan students and shared with all who happen upon them. I was indeed overwhelmed... overwhelmed with change, challanges, and authentic fellowship that made my entire experience invaluable.

To be a man is to be endowed with an intellect. But to be fulfilled as a man is to have this most essential of human faculties realized. The pursuit of knowledge exercises the intellect, and sharpens and refines it. This is the wisdom a college education has thus far imparted to me. It is in the pursuit of knowledge that one acquires true intellectual fulfillment. In order to know a thing, a man must exert his intellect over it. He must ponder it and mull it over in his mind. He must discover it, and still rediscover it, until it is etched deep into the hollows of his being, like some ancient engravings on the wall of a cave, to be discovered and rediscovered eternally. This is the great paradox of knowledge. It is not something to be had, it is something to do. The artist does not become an artist by acquiring art. Rather, he is called "artist" in his act of setting his brush to the white canvas. And in its most basic and ideal form, this is the college experience. It is the chance to set an intellectual brush to a white canvas.

I have actually learned quite a bit from coming to college. I have learned the value of education and where it can take me in life. I have also come to realize that it really is not who you know but how well you can show yourself to others through your schooling. I have made many new friends that have the same goals and asperations that I do. I have learned to value myself with pride because of the things that I am striving for in school. I also really enjoy the fact that i have worked this hard to come to the place that I am. I like the fact that since the first day I have come back to college I have not wasted any of my time will classes that i did not need in order to get my associates while being able to tranfer out at the same time. By doing so i leaarned the valuable lesson of time and will be able to transfer to a University coming the following Fall.

I did not discover the value of college until I overcame my stubborness and attended an institution last year. Originally thinking that I knew enough, I desperately avoided college, futilely. Now, after a year of college education, I realize that pursuing higher studies holds benefits. College taught me, first of all, how to live far from my family, make choice on my own, and live independently. The transition, though difficult, was necessary, and by going to college, I experienced the harship surrounded by peers undergoing the same change. My freshman year provided more than maturation. I realized that my knowledge was not sufficient. In just one year, I learned not only about the fine habits of a professional actress and the miniature parts of a microscopic cell, but I also discovered useful information in my area of study, English. From reading more critically to writing mroe professionally, I grew ever closer to my goal of becoming an author. All of this, I would never have experienced without college. University studies contain great importance and unimaginable value in shaping me into the adult I need to be.

I have gotten many things out of college. The first and foremost is the education I have recieved at my school. Without this education I would not be able to do well in the career that I want to get into. The second thing is the lifetime friends that I know I have gotten, even after just one year. Most of the people I have met I foresee as friends who I will continue to talk to long after I leave the school. Also life on campus helps people see how life in the real world is: coed and work hard to achieve goals. I expect to get more out of college every year I continue to attend this school!

From living on campus I have been able to mature greatly as an adult. I have learned about finances and about living on my own. I live in the dorms so I have also learn what it is like to live with another person. I had the experience of getting a job on campus which was also a learning experience. I work on the grounds crew and had to learn about all of the different types of plants around campus. I also took a year to declare my major. That was a tough decision, I declared Early Childhood/ Intervention Education. I want to help the mainstreamed and inclusion students in my classroom. I learned how important an education is, and am learning how to fund one. I have also grown in my Catholic faith, partly due to the Catholic environment at my school. It is a very supportive environment and my friends are also supportive.

So far I have only been here for less than two months, but in that time my life has been changing so much for the better. Being here has been allowing God to work in my life, and He has given me so many blessings. Also, being on such a small campus I am getting to know so many people. They are all amazing, and instead of being judged and stared at, everyone here wants to be friends! And even though it has just begun, my classes are teaching me so many things I would have never thought twice about before, and I am so excited to get to know everything I can so I can pass it on to the next generation.

Dear Maria, I know you are scared right now about what the future will bring. However, I have been to the future and have come to bring you good news and to give you some advice! First of all, STOP WORRYING SO MUCH!!! It is highly unnecessary. You are more capable of living on your own and taking initiative than you think. There are no cliques at Franciscan and no one is going to judge you on what you do and don't do. You will make friends, and the friends you make will grow closer to you in a week than your friends in high school did in four years. Maria, if I could only transmit to you how happy I am all of your doubts would melt away! I never knew that it was possible to actually WANT to go to class and enjoy every minute of it. Once you get here you will see that the major you chose is what you're meant to do and will interest you for the rest of your life. Enjoy the rest of your high school career, and then get out there and LIVE!! Love, Your Future Self