Dear Fellow Students,
Welcome back to another semester at Hillsdale College. I’m sure you’re all very excited for countless sleepless nights, shoulders hunched over pages and pages of incomprehensible ideas, aching with the stress of trying to make sense of higher learning that has seemingly little to do with your life. In fact, if the things you’re learning in class are easily applicable to your day-to-day existence, then you’re probably doing something wrong. Quick, sign up for a harder class. Oh, you thought I was finished admonishing you to challenge yourselves after all of those columns last semester? Well I’m not, mostly because it’s something we need to hear every day, especially at Hillsdale. Allow me to be serious this week. A.G. Sertillanges, in his book “The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods,” describes the life of study as something to which “we must give ourselves from the heart, if truth is to give itself to us. Truth serves only its slave.” If you were ever going to be enslaved to something, truth would be it, right? This admonishment does not only ring out to the history or English major; even if you are studying business or economics, your semester should involve some pursuit of higher truth. Your soul should be enriched and grow in virtue. So challenge yourself, push yourself, and allow yourself to be enslaved to the pursuit of truth.
Now to the more important topic of this column … Let’s not forget what season is almost upon us (well, relatively): SPRING! And what does this mean? You guessed it: Engagements! Ring by spring, senior ladies, ring by spring. You’re the only people on campus who are allowed to ignore the above paragraph and focus all of your energies on finding that special someone. If you don’t have a boyfriend, grab that cute sophomore boy you’ve been checking out for the last 5 months, bake him something delicious and slip him that picture of your favorite Vera Wang engagement ring, or better yet, forward him the link to your Pinterest board titled “Some day my prince will come.” (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, well then you are missing out on the latest Internet addiction website that kept me busy all Christmas break.) He’ll get the idea real fast. For all of the men who proposed over break, I commend you. Keep up the good work.
I look forward to all of your best questions this semester! Write to kolson@hillsdale.edu. Don’t worry, it’s always anonymous.
Kate
