Keeping Your Faith In College

Moving into college is a gigantic milestone in every person's life. It is your first time living by on your own without your family, and all of the responsibilities of everyday life are on your own shoulders instead of your caregivers. It is a time of change and of freedom as you begin to realize that there is so much more in the world than just your high school and your home town. You begin to be introduced to new activities, new people, and new lifestyles, and it is all incredibly exciting. However, with all of these news and firsts, come temptations and come busy schedules, and come the need for prioritizing, and all of these things can become detrimental to a person's relationship with the Lord. Yet, there are a plentitude of ways in which a college student can ensure that their faith becomes a priority and in which they can even have an immense amount of growth during these years. As a college student myself, I have decided to compile a list of tips and tricks of how to keep your faith strong and growing while in college.

Fix your schedule
When you start college, your schedule completely changes from what it was before at home. You might have classes that start later, activities late at night, or begin to stay up much later having fun with friends. All of these things are wonderful, but if you are someone who prays and reads the Word in the morning or at night, then sleeping in and staying up late, might throw off your 'schedule' of reading the Word. Therefore, in every new semester figure out your schedule, figure out when you have alone time in your room, or even make a decision to wake up a little bit earlier in the morning or go to bed a little bit earlier at night so you can be fully present in prayer and in study. For me personally, staying up late at night with my friends made me be tired at night when I went to bed and I had difficulty focusing on praying my daily Rosary before I went to bed, therefore, I figured out when I had alone time in my dorm room to pray the Rosary when I could really focus on it.

Join A Christian Club
The best part about college is that when it comes to clubs, you aren't obligated to attend every single meeting, or partake in every single activity, you have the freedom to kind of come and go as you please. Therefore, no matter how busy your schedule is, find time to go to a meeting of a Christian group on campus. Every college has some sort of Christian group, no matter what. I go to a state school that is known for partying and is in a state that has one of the lowest Church attendance rates in the nation, and there are still 3 different Christ based groups. Even if your school doesn't specifically have a Catholic group if you are Catholic or a Protestant group if you are Protestant, don't be afraid to join a group that goes outside of your personal denominations lines, odds are there will be other people of your denomination doing the same thing. Plus, we are all siblings in Christ, regardless of denomination and I can guarantee you that people will support your journey with the Lord, and if you feel uncomfortable about something, let them know, they should respect your beliefs. I am personally Catholic and I am part of the Catholic group, but also the generic groups that are more Protestant based, and I am even in a Bible Study with one of these groups. Even when one woman said that she didn't feel as though Catholicism was rooted in scripture, I simply said I feel that it is and that people just don't typically look too much into it, and she was fine with that belief.

Find a Church near by and go to it
This one is kind of obvious, but find a new church where you live and go to a Mass! You will probably meet at least one other student there, and who knows, maybe you will even find there is a whole separate Mass for students, as many Churches do this! I am lucky enough to be able to walk to a Catholic Church from my school, but if you aren't able to, look into different Christian groups, or different transportation to bring you to one. Often times Christian groups will organize rides for students to go to Church on Sunday's off of campus.

Find a blog or an Instagram page
While in college, I love to look to some awesome Instagram accounts and blogs that are faith based, to keep my mind being fed with different faith messages. I love ChurchPOP on Instagram and the blog, Haleyscarrots, Deuteronomemes, litcatholicmemes, and FarAwayDistance, as well as Kirbyisaboss, and obviously this blog too! Having these blogs, youtubers, or instagrammers to look at when you are bored and swiping through your phone is wonderful because you can keep the faith pouring into you, even if you aren't 100% focused.

Read Some Theology Books
My local town library didn't have many theology books, and now that I am in college, the library has SO MANY! You can check out theology books to read before class, when you are bored, etc, and they can be soo interesting. If you don't like the first one you read, look for another, as they are all different! I recommend Hail, Holy Queen, as it is my first theology book and I am currently reading it and it is absolutely amazing, and perfect for people who don't know too much about in depth theology!

Tell people you are a Christian
You will probably have friends that aren't Christians or particularly religious, and that is fine, you can learn so much from these people! However, it is important to at some point just bring up your faith. If they are good friends, they will keep you accountable for your actions. Plus, a huge part of faith is to be unashamed, and it can be hard in college (especially public ones)to be open about what your limits are, but if you are, the chances are your friends will question you if you start to press them.

Pray about it
Keeping your faith in college can be difficult even when you do all of these things, therefore you need to come back to the Creator and pray asking for strength to stay strong and for others to stay strong too. Nothing is more powerful than this.

In total, as difficult as it feels to keep your faith in college, if you put your mind to it and are unashamed about trying to keep your faith, you will have no issue. I truly pray that all college students are able to keep and grow in their faith in college, and that the Lord will guide them to sainthood.

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