Today’s WordPress Bloganuary prompt is “What colleges have you attended?”
I got my undergraduate degree from Franklin and Marshall College (F&M) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. F&M is a small liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,000 when I attended. All the professors were Ph.D’s, and the college offered no graduate programs.
My high school physics teacher, Nick Ignatuk, really pushed his alma mater, which is why I applied to F&M. I chose it over Bucknell and Penn State because they offered me more financial aid.
When I graduated high school in 1975, only about half the class went on to college. The rest got jobs, having completed a business curriculum or learned a trade. Since I graduated near the top of my class and was accepted by a competitive school, I had an inflated opinion of my academic prowess.
The rest of the freshman class at F&M had also finished near the top of their class. I was blessed with a healthy dose of humility as I began my classes. Many of my classmates were pre-med and pre-law, and they were smart and motivated. Everyone in my Calculus 2 class had skipped Calculus 1 with AP credit. Some guy in my European Studies class used the word ennui when describing slides of ancient ruins. I still don’t know what he was talking about. After failing the Chemistry midterm, my pre-med friends tearfully dropped the class and changed their major to Biology. Pre-law classmates in my dorm changed their majors when the government midterm got the best of them. The first basic accounting test knocked some of my friends on their butt. This was the real deal.
I had good high school teachers, but my college professors were off the charts. They were brilliant, eccentric, and published. Most had written the book we had to buy for the class.
I received a good education, but as I’ve written before, I learned more at the college radio station, in the band, and from fraternity life.
After I graduated and started my first job at Bell Labs, I was encouraged to pursue my master’s degree in electrical engineering. From the Asbury Park, NJ, area, I commuted to Rutgers in New Brunswick a few times a week and took a couple of electrical circuits classes. The professor didn’t really captivate the hundred-person lecture hall. And my heart really wasn’t in it. I did so-so, and then moved to Texas.
A few years later, I attended Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, IN. I got my M.Div. there and began a new career in full-time pastoral ministry. My classmates at seminary were from all over the country and a variety of backgrounds. Some students had relocated with a house full of kids. Others were right out of college pre-seminary programs. At least half were second career like me.
My seminary professors were amazing, brilliant, and well-published, too. They also really cared about the students, their families, and their faith. The faculty made it possible for us to not only graduate, but serve in parishes all over the world.
Waite for it... 