How easy is it to lose yourself in college?

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redbetta

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I’ll be starting college this September and, while my family is very happy for me, I’m dreading it. I’ve been dreading it more the past few days since I had to complete a sexual assault educational program for school that basically assumes that I am sexually active (I won’t give details) and I read a post on CAF about a person learning more than they cared to about sex because of a mandatory workshop in college. Over the years, I’ve also read a lot of horror stories on CAF of people’s kids going off to college and coming back hardly recognizable.

In response, I’ve been chalking up a list of things I’ve got going for me and things that might be chinks in my armor.

On one hand, I am not a very social person and hate parties and I chose one of the quieter dorms on campus and a quiet roommate so that the party doesn’t come to me. I’ve survived a nominally Catholic high school in which teachers openly mocked the Church and I’ve learned to not to take everything an authority figure says as gospel even if they are smart in their field of expertise. I am naturally contrarian and prefer to gravitate more to what is not mainstream. I am not naive and have been called extremely anti-naive and I would not trust any guy that just says he loves me.

On the other hand, I am going to one of the best universities in my country and, if someone poses a challenge to me, I’ll likely be facing an intellectual giant be it a professor or a student. I’m no prodigy and I’m not very talented or well-read, I’ve just gotten in because I busted my butt for four years.

These are some I don’t know areas: I’ve never been tempted to get myself into trouble, but, I’ve gone to an all-girls school and have forgotten what guys are like. Also, I never saw my classmates outside of school since school was always so far away. I generally don’t like being around people my age and now I will have no choice but to be with them 24/7. I was not raised in a devout Catholic household. I’ve tried teaching myself with limited resources, but, I still don’t have the best understanding. At least I’ve been around long enough to know where to find quick answers, but, I don’t have much of a support system (all of my Catholic friends live in other states and we only communicate by Skype).

Anyway, I am not sure what has kept me out of trouble all these years, my social isolation or my common sense. I think it was more the social isolation if anything. Anyway, sorry I could not make this post shorter and reading it is a lot of work, but, I need some help. Forgive any typo.
 
Going to a state university increased my faith. I don’t know what private Catholic universities are like. It’s easy to remain faithful when you already expect that 90% of what you hear will be BS. You have to defend your faith often and actually think about why you believe what you do in order to formulate a coherent argument.

I would worry more about someone being misled in a supposed Catholic school that isn’t really Catholic than a state school that doesn’t pretend to be.
 
Whether you recognize it or not, it is an exciting part of your life.

And you are going into it with an awareness of the pitfalls of a naive person, so I think you’ll be just fine.

College will likely broaden your universe. You will be exposed to far more opinions and vies than you had in your high school. And sure, that brings dangers. But you sound like you are anticipating that.

You may need to defend your beliefs - but that isn’t a bad thing. You can find like-minded people if you seek them. You can find adversaries. You can find those that are honestly searching and want to learn about everybody’s thoughts and beliefs.

Certainly you can find all the wild frat parties - drinking and drugs. But, you can also find individuals that sit quietly and discuss world issues with a handful of thoughtful individuals.

You will have professors that may have an agenda that you don’t agree with - but you may also find professors and TAs that teach for the love of teaching.

College will be what you make it, and you can make it pretty great. Look at the bulletin boards. Find things that you are interested in, and participate in those. Make friends. Go to the library, study. And don’t be afraid to be a voice of dissent when you don’t agree.
 
Before you go, check for the Newman Center location for your campus. It is a collage ministry for Catholics. You can go to Mass and confession, and there should be plenty of support for you with answers to your questions. Never, ever miss Mass.
 
Catholic1954 said:
Before you go, check for the Newman Center location for your campus. It is a collage ministry for Catholics. You can go to Mass and confession, and there should be plenty of support for you with answers to your questions. Never, ever miss Mass.
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I looked at the website for the Newman Center on campus. Newman Centers are like parishes, there are orthodox ones and there are heterodox ones. I tried looking for signs that it is one way or the other, but, I couldn’t find anything other than your typical cut and paste parish stuff. Any of you know what sorts of red flags to look for regarding Newman Centers? I guess I could find out who runs the show there and stalk them on Facebook to see if there is anything problematic.
 
You might also check to see if your college has a FOCUS group.

They can certainly help to keep you on track.
 
redbetta said:
I looked at the website for the Newman Center on campus. Newman Centers are like parishes, there are orthodox ones and there are heterodox ones. I tried looking for signs that it is one way or the other, but, I couldn’t find anything other than your typical cut and paste parish stuff. Any of you know what sorts of red flags to look for regarding Newman Centers? I guess I could find out who runs the show there and stalk them on Facebook to see if there is anything problematic.
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Just go there and see how it is. You are old enough to judge whether a parish or its priest are orthodox. Generally speaking, even if the Newman Center is weak, there is a parish nearby. You can probably figure out how to get there for Mass. Just as when you have a family and a home of your own, you’ll manage with what the Lord sends.

On that note: Have you asked the Lord to send you a good pastor and good Catholic friends? If not, pray for that in faith. Even two or three good Catholic friends will make all the difference.
 
Whether or not the Catholic Center is orthodox or not…it’s still Mass, and likely they still offer Adoration.
You don’t have to buy into odd preaching (it may be just fine anyway…our Archdiocese sends the finest priests to the Chaplaincy positions) but you should remain close to our Lord lovingly and physically by resting in His house (the Sanctuary) regularly.
Just making a visit can mean a peaceful night’s sleep. clam before a big exam, and forgiveness for trying situations.
You sound grounded. Keep studying hard. Likely you won’t have much time to get “lost” there. You’ll learn a lot about people. Like how to be true to your faith but still respect others who may not have the same background. How to be kind in the face of rotten tomatoes. 😉
How to be cordial and walk away from bad influences.
All important life skills. Ask your guardian angel to pray for you daily, ask the Holy Spirit to help you to reason well daily, and ask Our Lady to show you how to be holy daily.
You’ll do fine! You’ll make your family proud. 🙂
 
You have a good head on your shoulders, goals, and your own value system. You aren’t looking for other people to validate you.

You will be just fine.
 
If you go into college with goals and stick with them…you’ll be fine.

If you go knowing what you want to major in, what you’re there for and stick to it…you’ll graduate on time and you won’t lose your identity as a Catholic.

Study, look into the Newman center and figure out what the daily Mass schedule is and how that will fit into your own school schedule.

Daily Mass might not fit into your freshman year schedule…freshman year tends to be hectic and it can be tough managing your time and fitting other obligations into it…at first.
Once you get better at time management and are used to the schedule…you might find that daily Mass is very doable.

I’m finishing up my degree…and despite the fact that I’m attending a very liberal state school…they have advertisements for the Newman center and daily Mass in the library every day.

Go to class! Go to class! Go to class!

Make class, studying and homework your number one priority during the week and make Church and Mass your number one priority on the weekends.

You’ll be fine…good luck and have fun!
 
Generally I would say that it is usually pretty easy to lose yourself in college, because most young adults are not well-formed and just go with the flow, and marinating in a materialistic, secularist environment for too long eventually peels people away. I’ve seen it happen to too many people, and now coming out of that hole later in life will be all the more difficult for them unfortunately. But you seem to be a very well-formed and intelligent young adult so I sincerely doubt you will have much to worry about.

Hopefully you do have a good Newman Center. Unfortunately mine is without a doubt one of the most heterodox parishes I have ever come into contact with, but the interesting thing is that at least 90% of the other committed Catholic students don’t like it either, which means there are plenty of nice upperclassmen that have cars and go to better parishes (and this has nothing to do with EF vs. OF silliness, most of them don’t like the EF and just want to get to a normal parish). You should go to the Newman Center to find out what the deal is, and you’ll have to go there anyway since that’s how you’ll meet the other Catholic students. I actually think this works out better if you are at a secular university since the students going to Mass and participating in student Catholic groups are generally committed, since they have to actively swim against the flow at a secular university to be a part of things like that. We have a Newman Catholic Fellowship and a Knights of Columbus council for the students, and both of them are very good. I love being in our KofC council and have recently starting doing things with Newman and they are also very good. You should look into joining an equivalent organization at your school. Sometimes they start out a bit lax and need a bit of a re-invigoration, which was the case with both of ours, but you might actually be able to contribute to a revival if that’s the case, which is always a good thing 👍 Plus you make lots of good Catholic friends by getting involved with these things.
 
pianistclare said:
Whether or not the Catholic Center is orthodox or not…it’s still Mass, and likely they still offer Adoration.
You don’t have to buy into odd preaching (it may be just fine anyway…our Archdiocese sends the finest priests to the Chaplaincy positions) but you should remain close to our Lord lovingly and physically by resting in His house (the Sanctuary) regularly.
Just making a visit can mean a peaceful night’s sleep. clam before a big exam, and forgiveness for trying situations.
You sound grounded. Keep studying hard. Likely you won’t have much time to get “lost” there. You’ll learn a lot about people. Like how to be true to your faith but still respect others who may not have the same background. How to be kind in the face of rotten tomatoes. 😉
How to be cordial and walk away from bad influences.
All important life skills. Ask your guardian angel to pray for you daily, ask the Holy Spirit to help you to reason well daily, and ask Our Lady to show you how to be holy daily.
You’ll do fine! You’ll make your family proud. 🙂
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Right. I went to the Catholic Campus Ministry where I went to school (Michigan Tech University). The priest there was quite orthodox, but explained things in a way that would make it so that university students were more likely to listen to what he had to say. In addition, there are ample, ample chances to get involved in the CCM. In addition to liturgical ministries, the parish I went to at Michigan Tech had “chapel rats” (four young men who lived in an apartment in the rectory for free - their rent was doing upkeep on the parish grounds - many of them, though not all, went on to the seminary after finishing their undergrad work), a Respect Life group, a youth ministry group (the main purpose was putting on Confirmation retreats for teens and mini-retreats for children), a weekly rosary, Christian movie nights on Fridays during Lent, and many, many, many more ministries.

Of course, the Catholics that attend the CCM are from various backgrounds - some come from more orthodox parishes at home, some come from more liberal parishes, and what-not. The pastor really sets the tone, but, in general, it’ll be the more orthodox parishioners who get more involved in parish activities.

And as for the finest priests being assigned to the chaplaincy - before Archbishop Sample of Portland, Oregon was consecrated as bishop (originally for the diocese of Marquette, MI), he was the chaplain at Northern Michigan University (and he also did his undergrad work at Michigan Tech University - both of them state schools). And St. John Paul II was a chaplain at a university in Poland before he was consecrated as auxiliary bishop of Krakow.
 
I don’t mean to rain on your parade but… When I was in University, I remember telling a high school friend about all the first week pranks and how they would make us wear funny hats and other such things (not as innocent as a hat), she thought it was STUPID.

Then she had her first day at University seeing all the first year students laughing during orientation. Within less then 2 days, she went from thinking it was stupid to feeling left out.

So, yes you are wise to think these things are no good. But be prepared, the devil is clever. Once in the situation you WILL be tempted to join in. You may even find a serious student to be friends with only to find out they just needed a ‘wing man’ to help them get up the nerve to join the ‘fun’.

I would recommend trying to make friends at church with people who don’t necessarily go to your school. You may meet a nice young couple who needs a sitter for their kids, get invited to Sunday meals off campus.

Just stay close to God
 
**Kelfa28 **said: Daily Mass might not fit into your freshman year schedule…freshman year tends to be hectic and it can be tough managing your time and fitting other obligations into it…at first.
Once you get better at time management and are used to the schedule…you might find that daily Mass is very doable.
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First find out the Mass schedule, then schedule your classes 🙂 My main advice would be to really increase your prayer life *now, *and make a firm commitment to sticking to a prayer schedule every day. Have longer times for prayer in the morning, but have little times throughout the day for shorter prayers or reflection times. So you might do meditation in the morning, then at each mealtime, cast your mind back to your meditation and your resolutions. Have a little prayer to say before and after each class. And go to Mass on a very even schedule: what you want to avoid is making Mass and prayers “optional” because you have to drop some due to overloading your schedule at the beginning–it then becomes very easy every time you feel stressed about a deadline to say, I’ll just skip Mass today for the extra time. (Those are just examples; you will figure out what works best for you!)

Start with a schedule you can live with through exam week and stick to it, making the schedule very easy to stick to.

I hope that is clear :o All the other advice is good, but the one thing about college, even at the Newman Center, is that it it full of distractions!!! And that is why maintaining a prayer schedule which includes meditation and spiritual reading from the beginning is very important.
 
Hey,

It seems like you’re really afraid of college- Why be? It’s likely to be the most diverse time in your life so you have every opportunity to choose how you spend your time and who you surround yourself with.

You can’t run away from the secular culture. It’s going to be everywhere. The best you can do is be yourself and stand up for what you believe in the face of it.

But you’re going to have to get informed a bit more- your naivety will make you easy prey.
 
redbetta said:
I’ve survived a nominally Catholic high school in which teachers openly mocked the Church and I’ve learned to not to take everything an authority figure says as gospel even if they are smart in their field of expertise.
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Keep this philosophy, I’ve known my share of ‘educated’ fools. Be firm in your knowledge that you are an adult, act like one, and expect to be treated like one. I had a professor in colloge give me a failing grade on a research paper. I spoke with the dean who checked my research and the professor changed my grade. I went to a very irreligious, liberal college and had I not been taught by my conservative parents I may have fallen for it.

Arm yourself with prayer, the word and the sacraments and good Catholic friends.
 
Well, if you are going to one of the best universities in your country, chances are you are actually pretty darn smart. And with all of the qualities you listed, I wouldn’t be super concerned. You’ll be fine. 🙂
 
Keep in mind that the rape-prevention information has to be transmitted in such a way that people engaging in the riskiest behavior will not hesitate to come forward when they are victimized. If risk-reduction information is given with any indication that those who do immoral things ought to be ashamed of themselves, what happens is that those who are victimized are too afraid to come forward, because they fear that others will think bad things about them. The university needs people to know that they will not assume that anyone who is raped must be a drunk, a slut, or a fool, because these self-punishing thoughts are very common among rape victims.

I remind you of this because you may be put into the position of helping someone who was raped or otherwise suffers some tragic fate while he or she was doing immoral or foolish things. These might be the very things your friend or acquaintance might have taunted you about just the day before, because you weren’t willing to do them. You must be the picture of mercy in that case, because even if he or she was victimized because foolish choices created the vulnerability needed for the attack, the victim cannot go back an undo the choices that made the attack possible. They’ve suffered enough. They need compassion.

On that account, you ought to always talk about people who do these foolish and sinful things with a merciful voice. When someone is a victim and even when they are perpetrators, they need to know that the path of healing is open, that repentance is what is wanted, not self-flagellation. They need to know they can come to you. The way you talk about the fallen will make a big difference in whether or not the fallen will think you have a merciful heart when the time comes. Talk about virtue not in terms of those with vices being bad people, but because the way of virtue is good and leads to a better life, the life God intends his beloved to have.

C.S. Lewis often put it this way:
There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was ‘the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it’. And I am afraid that is the sort of idea that the word Morality raises in a good many people’s minds: something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time. In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work.
 
redbetta said:
I’ll be starting college this September and, while my family is very happy for me, I’m dreading it. I’ve been dreading it more the past few days since I had to complete a sexual assault educational program for school that basically assumes that I am sexually active (I won’t give details) and I read a post on CAF about a person learning more than they cared to about sex because of a mandatory workshop in college. Over the years, I’ve also read a lot of horror stories on CAF of people’s kids going off to college and coming back hardly recognizable.

In response, I’ve been chalking up a list of things I’ve got going for me and things that might be chinks in my armor.

On one hand, I am not a very social person and hate parties and I chose one of the quieter dorms on campus and a quiet roommate so that the party doesn’t come to me. I’ve survived a nominally Catholic high school in which teachers openly mocked the Church and I’ve learned to not to take everything an authority figure says as gospel even if they are smart in their field of expertise. I am naturally contrarian and prefer to gravitate more to what is not mainstream. I am not naive and have been called extremely anti-naive and I would not trust any guy that just says he loves me.

On the other hand, I am going to one of the best universities in my country and, if someone poses a challenge to me, I’ll likely be facing an intellectual giant be it a professor or a student. I’m no prodigy and I’m not very talented or well-read, I’ve just gotten in because I busted my butt for four years.

These are some I don’t know areas: I’ve never been tempted to get myself into trouble, but, I’ve gone to an all-girls school and have forgotten what guys are like. Also, I never saw my classmates outside of school since school was always so far away. I generally don’t like being around people my age and now I will have no choice but to be with them 24/7. I was not raised in a devout Catholic household. I’ve tried teaching myself with limited resources, but, I still don’t have the best understanding. At least I’ve been around long enough to know where to find quick answers, but, I don’t have much of a support system (all of my Catholic friends live in other states and we only communicate by Skype).

Anyway, I am not sure what has kept me out of trouble all these years, my social isolation or my common sense. I think it was more the social isolation if anything. Anyway, sorry I could not make this post shorter and reading it is a lot of work, but, I need some help. Forgive any typo.
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Congratulations on being accepted at a prestigious university.
Just be careful who you associate with because colleges are a hotbed(excuse the phrase) of immoral activity.yes,it is assumed that everyone is sexually active because in secular society sexual intercourse is merely another social expression little different than hugging.

Good luck in your endeavors.
 
cjforJesus said:
Congratulations on being accepted at a prestigious university.
Just be careful who you associate with because colleges are a hotbed(excuse the phrase) of immoral activity.yes,it is assumed that everyone is sexually active because in secular society sexual intercourse is merely another social expression little different than hugging.

Good luck in your endeavors.
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If the Lord sends you even two or three solid friends who want to please God, you can endure being among thousands who seem not to care about God at all.

Universities are The World in microcosm. You cannot take yourself out of the world. The idea is to live in the world without being “of the world,” and to be the light of Christ in the world. The Church cannot stay healthy if it does not go out among those who still need the light of Christ, nor if it goes out and does not remain distinct from those who do not know Christ.

This is part of Pope Francis’ message to catechists:
*“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” *

The other part of the message are what he called the systole and diastole of being filled up with love by God in prayer and going out and sharing that love with our neighbor. There must be all three: being filled with Christ, meeting one’s neighbor in the love of Christ–those are the systole and diastole, like a heart being filled with blood and pumping it–and then going out two-by-two into the streets where Christ is needed. If you try to have one or two out of the three–well, the Pope says he does not understand how anyone thinks they can possibly do that.
 
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