Date: August 14, 2024
With move-in day a week in the past and August term in full swing, it’s natural for new students to feel overwhelmed both with the change of environment and the number of expectations suddenly placed upon them. When reflecting on my own August term experience, tried-and-true clichés come to mind like “drinking from a firehose” and freely given advice (sometimes without prompting) like “it’s impossible to read everything.” While these aphorisms are common for good reason, I’d like to share with you the best advice I was given upon moving to VTS.
Don’t put the community last.
What does that mean? I certainly didn’t understand it at first. After all, as a discernment track M.Div. student, I’m here to get a degree that’s a requirement for me to live into my calling. What does community have to do with that?
In short, this place’s strength lies in the friendships and bonds formed here. This doesn’t mean that academics aren’t important, they are. It doesn’t mean that formation and worship should take a back seat, they shouldn’t. It means that the common theme underpinning all of what happens here at VTS is the relational, communal way of living. Your peers will be there when you are struggling to understand the difference between homoousias and homoiousia, they’ll be there to organize last minute study sessions in the flamingo, and they’ll be there when you’re very calling feels under attack and you just need some support.
All of this is to say, I’d like to encourage new students at VTS to be intentional in August term about getting to know your classmates inside and outside of class. You’ll undoubtedly be spending a lot of time with these people in the next few years.
Jeremy Adams
Student Body Treasurer