The Lance
September/October 2011
PERSPECTIVES
Page 3
Five Golden Starts for St. Andrews
RukaAkoIade '14
Being an out of state student is bad enough without the
school you’re attending or the people surrounding you mak
ing it harder for you.
Anending UNC Pembroke last semester for me may have
been an experience that I needed but not the experience that
I necessarily wanted.
Yes, Pembroke was a good school with a high level of edu
cation but college is a lot more than the education, its the
people you meet and the life lessons you learn during that
time. I am the kind of person who is shy when I first meet
someone and trying to make friends and meet new people
was a difficult task for me. To me it seemed as though every
one was more worried about their clicks that they were
already involved in than anything else. My college experi
ence quickly became a High school experience and that was
not what I wanted. The professors and dorm supervisors
treated you hke children and not college students, your
friend were not even allowed in your room after 11pm
because campus police would come banging on the door and
it just didn’t feel like the environment I wanted to be in.
Coming to St. Andrews has been one of the best decisions
that I have ever made. I have a great group of girls as team
mates, everyone on campus knows who you are and tries to
get to know you, people smile and greet you as you walk by
them, the teachers here are all incredible and it’s just icing on
the cake that I get to be here and share this experience with
the best guy in the world. Honestly I have loved the past 2
months being here at St. Andrews and I would not change
this experience for anything else in this world because I
think for me it’s the best place as far as education and the
opportunity to play volleyball.
So I guess to sum up how I feel about St. Andrews, I guess
I would say FANTASTIC, BLAST IN A GLASS
AND A GOOOOD TIME!!!!!
Life After St. Andrews
Matthew Peak ’08 an i i
Surely a 15 hour
In May of 2008, I rolled my should be
wheelchair down the exit ramp enough to accom-
of the presentation platform plish my 14 credit
with my degree in hand.
Finished was my undergraduate / / ^ ^
, ^ „ f , have enough time to
education at St. Andrews . , ^ ,
Presbyterian College. Now, the
year 2011 is upon me and I am never was.
asking myself what life has been
like since I graduated. More importantly I want to know
what I have learned. It is a sobering moment to realize how
short life is and yet how big it is for those who are willing to
grow and learn.
While at college, I started with a Creative Writing major
and switched over to a Communications major, both of
which have served me well ever since. The professors I met
knew more about the world than I did and there were peo
ple who stirred my passions and others who angered me to
no end. Those who proved themselves to be faithfiil friends
appeared on the scene. I ate out more in four years, had
more Chinese and Papa Johns Pizza than I could have hoped
for, and had more personal freedom than I ever thought pos
sible.
And yet I remember being tired and exhausted all the
time, remembered experiencing burn out often and living in
that zone known as “auto-robotic.” Surely a fifteen hour day
should be enough to accomplish my fourteen credit course
load and have enough time to spend with friends. Yet it
never was. When I look back at those four years I remain
frustrated because I feel I could have done so much better as
a student and as a person.
At home, away from the explosive college life, I had
opportimities to sit under the Dogwood in my front yard,
reflecting on my four years. I wanted to work, to be respon
sible, but nothing afforded itself and efforts to jump start a
home business almost threw me into bankruptcy, leaving me
time to reflect. It was the Dogwood tree what showed me
what I needed to learn.
That tree proved itself the finest example of what was
wrong in my life. I noticed that it did not strive to be the
biggest tree or to prevent other trees from growing. Nor did
it attempt to grow as big and fast as possible or seek to stay
(See PEAK, Page 4)
“I do not agree with what you have to say, hut I’ll
defend to the death your right to say it. ”
- Voltaire
The views expressed in the Perspectives Section and other
locations in The Lance are the opinions of the writer
and do not necessarily reflect the vietvs of The Lance
staffs or St. Andrews University.
**Think GlobaUy, Act Locally”