Hello friends. I’m not sure how you ended up here—maybe you’re not sure either—but I would like to welcome you. For my first post, I would like to introduce myself, explain my purpose behind this blog, and tell how I got to where I am.
So first, the introduction. I have such a diverse group of friends—those from home, those from school, and other awesome people I’ve met around the world—I have no idea how much you already know about me. My name is Olivia and I turn 19 in less than a week. I hail from a small town in northern Minnesota, the likes of which I will always call home. I’ve lived in that same town my entire life, and I really do love it. I am about to begin my freshman year of college at Biola University in La Mirada, California. But I will get to that in a minute. I love photography so very much, so you will see photos sprinkled in these posts. I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and my life is a journey of continually seeking Him. I will end this introduction here, because you will learn more about me as I continue to post.
When I was making my college decision, I told myself that if I ended up in California, I would make a blog titled “I Must Be in California” (yes, the line from the Owl City song) and write about all my crazy adventures. By God’s grace and leading, I ended up here in California, and I plan to stick to my word. Although not all of my adventures are that crazy, I also intend to use this blog to write about the amazing things God is doing and the reasons that I love Biola.
“So Olivia,” you may say, “You’re from Minnesota, but somehow ended up at college in California? How does that work?” Given that I get this question a lot, please allow me to explain…
Since about my freshman year of high school, I was incredibly worried about where I was suppose to go to college. Mainly, I was so afraid of making the wrong choice. I prayed about the decision often, waiting for God’s leading. My sophomore year, I started receiving a lot of information from Biola. My dad told me that he had heard a lot of good things about it, so I started looking into it. Flash forward a year, I met Michael Gonzales, who would be my admissions counselor, at a Christian college fair in Minneapolis. My interest in Biola was further increased. After all kinds of prayer and research, I decided on six schools that I was going to apply to: Biola University, Pepperdine University, Azusa Pacific University, Huntington University, Northwestern College, and Wheaton College.
The summer before my senior year, I visited the first three on the list. Both Biola and APU seemed pretty great, although I was leaning toward Biola. Pepperdine wasn’t quite the right fit, but I decided I would still apply. December of my senior year, I attended “Biola Bound,” a weekend at the college designed for out of state students. It was a phenomenal time. I met some amazing people, and I loved everything about Biola. When it was time to leave, I was genuinely sad that I potentially may never return.
In February of my senior year, I found out that I had been selected at APU as one of forty Trustee Finalists—their full-ride scholarship which I had applied for. In March, they flew me out to APU for a weekend to interview and learn more about the school. I had so much fun, it was ridiculous. I laugh a lot, but rarely have I laughed as much as I did with the other Trustee Finalists. I actually had more fun than I did at Biola Bound, even, but I decided that APU just wasn’t quite perfect for me. A few weeks later, I found out that I wasn’t picked to be one of the seven scholarship recipients, and it was actually a relief.
Now, it was April, and there were still two schools I hadn’t toured: Huntington and Wheaton. For those of you who don’t know, my older sister attends Northwestern, so I’d already spent a lot of time there. Well, two weeks before May first—the day I had to make my decision by—I spent a weekend in Indiana and Illinois. I started out at Huntington University, which I’d heard great things about. It really was a pretty great school, but it was too small for me. Plus, the city of Huntington was really similar to my hometown, and I was ready for something totally different. The next day I toured Wheaton, which I actually wasn’t expecting to like as much. But I liked it. A lot. I was so surprised at this, too. All the negative things I’d heard about the school, well, I didn’t see any of them. So, naturally, this was not what I had been expecting.
The next two weeks turned into wrestling with God over what He wanted me to do. Both schools had different programs that I liked, so my major would affect my decision… Or my decision would affect my major; I wasn’t entirely sure. I made a list of pros and cons and sought advice from as many people as I could. I had a desperate wish that God worked in neon signs or giant billboards. I couldn’t decide how big of an adventure I was looking for: LA area or Chicago area. Tears were shed as I struggled with the realization that I couldn’t know everything. I had to come to terms with the fact that if need be, I may have to transfer. And that wasn’t that I had somehow failed, but just that things weren’t right for me.
The day I had to make my decision, I left for school still unsure. I thought about it on my drive to school, and when I arrived, I texted my dad. I told him it had to be Biola. If it wasn’t, I would likely regret it and always wonder, “What if…?”
So, hopefully that explains how I got here. Now for the second question… What’s your major? Also, another interesting story. I shall give you the abridged version. I applied to my six schools under a number of different majors: engineering, mathematics, and journalism. After a while, I realized that I felt like I should go into engineering because I had the skills for it, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Yet I was stuck between the other two. I applied for all kinds of scholarships and prayed fervently about it. Long story short, I ended up receiving four-year scholarships for both communications and math/science. “Okay Lord,” I said, “I’ll pursue both and see where that takes me.” So that is what I’m currently doing and seeing what the next step is that God has in store for me.
My journalism emphasis is visual journalism, because I would love to be a photojournalist one day. Eventually, when I have a family, I would like to open a small studio. My math emphasis is computer science, because my dream job would be to work for Apple or Google, but there’s a very good chance I may change that. But that’s another story.
So now that this post went from being an intro to my life story, I shall end it here. This is where I’m at.
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