College Newspaper Article 1

The other day, I was looking through some of my things from college when I came across a few articles I wrote during my sophomore year while I worked for the school newspaper, the Lakeholm Viewer. I had almost entirely forgotten about them, and it was fun reading back through them. I figured since this is my collection of things I have written, I would add them on here. Sorry if they aren’t amazing. I was only a sophomore!

Pros and cons of marriage while in college weighed by students

By Zach Zeltman

Staff Writer

September 24, 2010

The majority of students at Mount Vernon Nazarene University seem to want to get married . . . soon! Many people joke about getting a ring by spring, but quite a few students have already taken the plunge.

According to research assistant Carla Parsons, MVNU has more than 80 traditional students who are married. So despite what many people think, only about four percent of students at MVNU are married.

Out of 34 students polled, nearly 40 percent said they either plan to get married while in college or at least meet their future spouse during that time.

Broken down by gender, the numbers are closer than one might have thought. Forty-one percent of females compared to 33 percent of males thought they would get married or find their future spouse while in college.

Multiple students responded by saying that finding a spouse was not on the top of their priority list of things to accomplish while at MVNU, but they were still open to the prospect of finding a potential husband or wife.

This summer, junior business management major Scott Hilbert married his high school sweetheart, Haley Dunham, a junior nursing major. He says getting married was an easy decision for him. Scott and Haley Hilbert had been dating for almost five years before tying the knot. Both of their parents were married at a young age so they were fully supportive in Scott’s and Haley’s wanting to get married while they were still in college.

Haley Hilbert says being a married student at MVNU is “super convenient.” She can always be with her best friend and can escape from campus life when needed. She adds that she gets homesick much less now because she feels that she is now in her own home.

“I love being married in college. It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said.

One can imagine that being married in college can be challenging for many reasons. The most obvious reason is the time commitment of being a student, participating in extracurricular activities and just wanting to spend time with friends on campus.

There are benefits to being married while in college as well. The state and federal governments help married students quite a bit, and the MVNU family discount is nice too.

Scott and Haley Hilbert both talked about how they enjoy the married housing provided by MVNU because it is close enough that they are still around their friends and can be at events if they want, but they aren’t stuck on campus all the time.

“I think that students can find their spouse here because of the Christian atmosphere,” student body president Jameson Seymour said.

“Most of the students want to have a healthy, Christ-following relationship, and since MVNU is a Christian campus, it is easier to find a life-long companion.”

Seymour also says that he thinks sometimes students think they need to find a relationship at the University, but this should not be the norm for college-age students.

The End of an Era

Being a recent college graduate and still looking for a job has given me some free time to reflect on the recent happenings of my life. I find it hard to even grasp, at times, that college has already flown by and is now just a memory. Those four short years were the most transformative years of my life. One of the biggest aspects in this transformative process was being on the basketball team at the Naz.

There are times now, when the fact that being part of a part of the team I was on is over. Honestly, this is a hard pill to swallow. Sports has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have been in a team setting for almost 20 years. I’ve known for a while that I would be done playing on a real team after college. (If I ever had any chance at playing anywhere professionally, that chance went out the window when I had my health issues. I never became the player I should have been mainly because of that.)

Just because I knew in my mind that the days of playing basketball were going to end doesn’t mean the rest of me had the same understanding. It’s almost like part of me didn’t believe that it would really end. While still there, I found myself realizing this phase of life was coming to a close. Keeping this in mind, I tried to take hold of every moment late in my college career because I didn’t want to take this journey for granted.

The thing about team sports is that there is so much more to it than just the sport itself. Do I miss playing basketball on a regular basis? Absolutely, I love playing, but it’s more than just the game itself. I miss competing with other teams with players that are on a similar or higher level. I miss the mental aspect of the game. I miss practicing and working out. I miss being pushed more than I would normally push myself and finding out I have more in me than I thought. But more than anything, I miss being a part of a family of other guys that I go to battle against in practice and go to battle with everywhere else.

Being a part of the basketball team at the Naz developed me so much on and off the court and made me a better person in nearly every aspect of life. I will cherish the times I had there for the rest of my life. I love that team and I will always remember the time and work put in with those guys. At times, it’s depressing thinking that it is all over. But then I realize that it’s not really over. Because anything these guys do next year or the year after and so on, I know that I was a part of the process and a small part of their success.

Like Crazy

I just watched a movie called Like Crazy about a long-distance relationship, where he lives in LA and she lives in London. The couple is madly in love with each other, but then they break up because of the distance. When they are apart, they’re with different people but still hanging onto each other so they were unhappy. Then they see each other again but they are constantly fighting about how they can be together again.

They both end up in serious relationships with other people but, after a few years, give it up to get back together. Only now, they find out that it's not the same, and, once again, they're not happy. Then the movie ended. Nothing resolved, nobody happy…

I walked away thinking that movie was just depressing and stupid. But then, I thought about how sometimes, that’s just life. The things that you think are worth hanging onto don't turn out to be anything like what you thought. You think you know exactly what you want, but then people change—yourself included. And it never turns out like you planned. The longer you think about and dwell on it, the more time you waste of something else that could be happening that could be truly spectacular and life-changing. You end up wasting all that time thinking and hoping that you know what you want and what's good for you when, really, you have no idea. The truth is, sometimes, we just don’t know what/who is right for us.  

I guess the moral that I took away from this movie is that hanging on to the past is never a good idea. That doesn’t mean you have to block out the past and that you can’t appreciate moments, but you have to move forward. If something or someone from the past is going to come along again, you can cross that bridge when you come to it. The other moral is that whatever you're going to do in life, wherever you're going to be, in a relationship or not, you have to be in it 100%. Because if you're in something but even part of your heart is elsewhere, you're ruining your chance at whatever you're trying. So I guess you have to figure out what's really worth fighting for before you get in too deep and realize you wished you had been trying harder from the start.  

So take your time to mourn the loss of somebody and get over it. But try to get yourself together quick enough that you don't miss out on a love like crazy.