Caelan Goes to College

 

She's a few weeks in to her new (crazy busy) schedule, but Caelan seems to be loving (almost) every minute of her college experience!

The first week, they played hand clapping games and youth group ice breaker games to get to know each other. The professors handed out cookies and Skittles in class. In her music classes, they are doing jazzercise, and group sing-a-longs. They regularly announce where to get free donuts, soup, or shaved ice on campus.

I told her, "I think I did college wrong." Ha! This sounds more like kindergarten fun! She said, "Oh and in my show choir class we had to break into groups and choreograph a routine and sing to I'm a Little Tea Pot!" as if to prove my point ;) I told her that song already has choreography, this college thing thing is a breeze!

She's also been interacting with anyone who looks lonely on campus. She invited a lost-looking boy to eat lunch with her in the cafeteria. She saw a girl with a Jesus sweatshirt on and asked if she had a church. She did. Did her church have a college ministry? No. So Caelan invited her to ours :)

She wasn't sure she wanted to jump into our college ministry right away, especially since it is during her planning time at karate. However, she was made the Vice President on the charter, so our church's ministry can be considered an official club and our pastors can be on campus. She expanded from going to the regular meeting, to going to the small group meeting, and now wants to be part of the ladies' Bible study, too! The group is growing quickly and they do lots of fun things together. We don't see her much, but that's what being in college (and having three jobs) is all about!

Caelan likes the classes where she "gets graded for talking." Hmmm, perhaps Communication was a good major to choose, after all :) She's excited about giving her first speech in speech class, she took notes on a video in another class where the professor is brand new and has never taught the material before--which resulted in Caelan getting to write her notes on the board for the class to discuss :)

For some reason, they get to take tests on things like--the syllabus! In groups! With retakes! And teacher assistance! Right now all her classes are in the high 90s percentage-wise; she likes to keep trying until she gets it all correct. Her online class assignments are basically discussion posts and commenting on other students' discussion posts from what she's told me.

Her scholarships all came through (although one was after the first payment was due), so her first semester was a grand total of like $1,200 out-of-pocket . . . which mostly came from graduation gifts. So, I would say overall, this college thing is working out pretty well for Caelan! She's set to finish in three semesters and then on to the next school ( still TBD :)