At Geneva, faculty and staff members recognize that students are whole people with a variety of responsibilities and interests.

While there may also be a tension for how you will choose to use your time, at its best, Geneva recognizes the benefits that integrating multiple interests provides, especially with the opportunities available by a relatively small college. Geneva encourages the integration of disciplines and often works diligently to help students excel across several opportunities.

In many colleges, students are regularly asked to be “all in” on just one area of non-major involvement. Geneva emphasizes students’ ability to engage meaningfully in multiple areas of campus life.

In my own interactions, I’ve met students who participate in musical ensembles while playing two varsity sports, and resident assistants who also lead clubs. One of my own interns is on the basketball team; the other is about to serve her second year as an RA.

One extracurricular I’ve had the opportunity to participate in at both schools (Geneva College as my graduate school and place of employment, and my undergraduate Christian college) is the choral ensemble. At my undergraduate institution, I struggled to balance being involved in both theatre and choir at the same time. At Geneva, though, the choir includes varsity student-athletes, several RAs, students involved in theatre, and a dozen or more engineering and other STEM majors alongside humanities and music students.

This mix of students provides relationships that may not otherwise exist and can even lead to developing a better understanding of the individuals impacted by a new topic through asking questions of a friend in that major.

This kind of environment creates strong community as you develop friendships with a wide variety of people. While the work you each return to after rehearsal may look very different — time in the lab, lesson plans, readings, or preparing for a presentation — you still come together to share meaningful experiences, whether that’s a competitive game or performing a piece of music.

At the same time, this enables student’s real-life flexibility, where multiple types of skills (gained in formal and informal settings) may be called upon in jobs, vocations, and volunteer positions.

I’ve also appreciated the difference that Division III athletics makes. I’ve had the opportunity to meet, share meals with, and be in Bible studies and clubs with dozens of student-athletes in my two years at Geneva. That doesn’t mean athletics aren’t taken seriously, but they’re given their proper place as a training ground for perseverance and strength of character that serves students long after they stop playing.

This is a clear contrast between my experience at another Christian college in undergrad. There, I only knew one or two athletes in my entire tenure. These student-athletes lived, ate, and studied together, and the one time I knew a student-athlete who wanted to participate in another activity, he quit his sport.

Campus culture changes when the record-breaking athlete is also in your group project or talking with other RAs in the dining hall. Now, students go to games because they support their friends — not only because they want to see the opposing team “taken down.”

Through the wholistic opportunities Geneva encourages, students become multi-dimensional and are trained to think deeply beyond their discipline.

Learn more about my top six reasons on how Geneva stands out in the world of Christian higher education.