I’d always known I would be going to college, mostly because I’d been told so since I was little. The step after high school was always going to be college for me. Not a job, not a trade school—I was going to college. In the summer of ‘21, I applied to and was accepted by Evangel University. In the spring of ‘22, I graduated high school. Then, finally, after eighteen years of waiting and imagining and waiting a bit more, I moved in for my freshman year in the fall of 2022.
  College felt Mature. College felt like being an Adult. College was seven hours away from my family, so maybe it also felt Lonely.
  I was excited, though. As a totally mature and utterly responsible adult, it was my sworn duty to apply myself to my studies and make my brain wrinklier. One thing that was somehow both the same and different from high school to college was picking classes. In high school, poor Mrs. Stader, my guidance counselor, was left to strongly advise me in what classes I should take. In college, the lovely Dr. Friesen, my advisor, was a primary onlooker in each semester of chaos I concocted. I remember Friesen walking me through my course requirements as an English major for the first time. The page of possibilities held future paths like a crystal ball. I needed to work a semester on a campus publication (I write, from my office as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Epiphany magazine). I needed to take fifteen credit hours of writing courses (I say, several chapters deep into the second novel I’ve worked on for class). I also absolutely, no backing out, 100 percent needed to do a writing internship.
  As a freshman, I was an okay writer at best. People like to tack on the word “aspiring,” like that softens the blow. I was aspiring to know where to place a comma. I had been swimming in the art of narrative for several years, but I was just learning to dog paddle in poetry and spoken word. I would rather have drowned than seriously consider academic writing. The thought of a formal internship chilled like leftovers from a frozen microwave. The only context I had for what an internship might be was Carl from Phineas and Ferb. Somehow, I didn’t think I was capable of making coffee and graphics to fight against the crusade of evil.
  I’d always known I was going to college, but I didn’t always know I’d be an intern. Perhaps it’s my own youth, but the word just sounds so thrilling, so full of anticipation. Interns got to apply all the years of practice into the first real duel against the real world, steel to steel and word to paper. Or, as I was growing into my skills, word to microphone.
  I began my descent into the craft of spoken word on a whim. The drama team at church had disbanded, so there weren’t any special elements for the year’s revival service. I’d been writing poetry for a month or two, thus I took it upon myself to fill the void with some dramatically presented rhymes. The smooth feel of a microphone in hand, the wave of my voice lilting across an audience, the private conversations with God—the whole process is now comfortably familiar. This skill acquired on a whim had grown to mean something, both to me and my current employers.
  I’ve gone to college and acquired an internship, although I still haven’t made coffee for anyone. Instead, I attend meetings, perform faith-based poetry, and scribe out whatever draft fits into the miscellaneous needs of First and Calvary Presbyterian Church. I am a student, an intern, a scholar—I am a part of a group of Christian creatives dedicated to coloring ministry to be a little brighter. Over the course of the next few weeks, join me as I journey into the lives of the other nine students, interns, and scholars. We have all grown up, matured a little, and attended college, but we are not alone in our work. And, if you wonder if you have a place in our budding team of talent, make sure to apply at: https://www.firstandcalvary.org/scholars-application