The Cycle of Transformation

We have just finished up our third FOCUS session out of four. It has been pretty sweet to see everyone finally coming to campus and getting their first taste of what Freshman year will be like. Students have traveled great distances to make it here and have seemed to enjoy most all aspects of their time on campus. Being a Valpo alum myself, it is always fun to picture myself as I was in their shoes. My FOCUS experience was a great opportunity for me to start feeling comfortable with campus. I was able to recognize where buildings were, who my professors were going to be and where I planned to live. Joy abounds in watching other students repeating these same experiences and developments five years later.
Even more so, it is good to see the development of personalities. Though I was obviously the same being when I was an incoming freshman, there were several things that were different about me at that time than now. My hair was longer, my travel experience was thinner, and, amongst other things, I had no college diploma. More than that, I suppose I would label myself as pre-transformed when I was a student at FOCUS. In high school I suppose I would have been classified as a pretty good guy with a relatively insightful view of life. Yet, there was a great amount that I had yet to learn and even more, as with Socrates, that I needed to learn I would never know. My mental and personal state was one of optimism and naivete that is not uncharacteristic of a high school senior. I was hardly worse or better off than the majority of my peers, but rather I was amongst my peers. Together we were waiting to be transformed by life and what was to come, and I think that those of us who chose to come to Valpo were awaiting this transformation more anxiously than most.
Lo and behold, when we came to campus, transformation is what occurred. As we met peers from all over the US and the world our social networks began to grow beyond the regions of our early youth. Not only were we influenced by friends from across the street or across town, suddenly we were challenged to consider the perspectives of friends from the mountains of Colorado, the coast of California, the cold lakes of Minnesota, the peninsula of Michigan, the desert of Saudi Arabia, the cities of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Cleveland, and beyond. Suddenly, in a brief period of time, I was challenged and afforded the opportunity to view distant places and countries in new ways. I no longer considered New York a distant state filled with people I didn't know. Suddenly New York was the home of James and Matt. Saudi Arabia grew in my mind from being a country with oil deposits to being the place where my friend Ali heralded from. My perspective of the world was transformed by personal, important relationships with students, peers, and friends from all over the country and world. The world was no longer something I studied at impersonal distance but became something I related to through interpersonal conversation.
Likewise, my academic experience was laden with new angles, approaches, ideas, methods, and insights that brought knowledge to a personal level of worth and participation. No longer was my gateway to knowledge exclusively contained in the textbook or on the chalkboard. My learning became a dynamic dialogue that I participated in with my classmates, professors, books, lectures, and a variety of other new methods of intellectual exploration. All of these were invaluably transformative to my mind and my person. These opportunities allowed me to develop into a more reflective and content being who could appreciate the world for the beauty it has to offer.
Seeing students engage in their new campus for the first time at FOCUS brings me to a state of nostalgia at seeing them in the beginning stages of their own cycle of transformation. Valpo changes people and changes them for the better. My life is richer through my Valpo transformation and I am grateful that others will also be transformed.