Recently I passed the accomplishment of “halfway day”. I received a pin for being halfway to undergrad graduation, pinned by my mother. I quickly began to reflect on the weight of this situation and the fact that in a little over two years, I would be graduating among people I had never met before coming to college yet knew on such deep and fundamental levels.Â
This phenomenon that I choose a small-town private college over even applying to Syracuse University would fundamentally shock twelve-year-old Ella. From the time of entering college to now so much has changed and so much will most likely continue to change and evolve in my remaining two years. However, I want to travel back to why I chose St. Bonaventure in the first place.Â
My first tour of St. Bonaventure occurred in my junior year of high school, in mid-late April of 2022. My dad came with me, there was a presentation and then we went on a tour of St. Bonaventure. After, my dad took me to the bookstore and let me pick out a St. Bonaventure zip-up sweatshirt and joked with me about how “he’d get a rash buying St. Bonaventure Dad merchandise” as a very proud VCU alum. The entire tour thrust me into fully seeing myself go through four years at St. Bonaventure, growing to be a better person who had more skills when she graduated than what she came in with. My parents told me that we would have to tour and look at other colleges, and not to put everything into going to St. Bonaventure just yet.Â
The summer between my junior and senior years, I went on another tour, this time with my mother, but that didn’t deter my gut feeling that this university was going to become my second home. I just had that gut feeling that wasn’t going away and didn’t show up when touring any other college campus. Now considering the only urge I had to transfer was in moments of pure homesickness during my freshman year, I can say that my gut made the right choice.Â
Now that my brother has also gone through the process of picking a college. I think it is impossible to write this article without including this fact about myself and my upbringing. Both my brother and I choose religious schools. My brother goes to Grove City College two and a half hours away from me and five hours away from home. Considering that neither my brother nor I are baptized this choice of going to religious schools is quite the contrast to how we were raised.Â
Growing up, my dad was always really firm in the fact that both my brother and I should be allowed to explore our own religious beliefs however we saw fit, and that the choice of where and how we get baptized would be entirely up to us. As a result, my brother and I were not baptized in a specific church or raised going to mass every Sunday. We did attend Christmas mass with my mom and her side of the family every Christmas until I was about thirteen. I had a best friend whose dad was a pastor for a local church, where I would attend youth group meetings and occasional masses, although mostly to hang out and help where I could. I also had friends who were Muslim and enjoyed teaching me aspects of their religion.Â
So that’s not to say that I grew up with absolutely no awareness of religious context. However, much of the history didn’t speak to me. The way I saw religion in the lives of those around me was that an invisible man in the sky promised rewards for basic human decency to others and acts of kindness enacted during the course of someone’s life. I didn’t like being incentivized to be nice to others. It didn’t and still doesn’t bother me if other people are religious, it’s just not something I saw as beneficial for myself.Â
However, going to St. Bonaventure gave me a wider understanding of religion from the Franciscan perspective. Although I’m not yet comfortable in claiming a religious identity (agnostic and atheist included), I greatly appreciate all the opportunities I have been given to explore what religion means to people, having deep and meaningful conversations in the University of Ministries building (UMIN), and the transparency and kindness that comes with learning about the religious perspective from different voices. Â
Every day, I have a brief moment of appreciation for junior year Ella who decided to trust her gut and pursue St. Bonaventure University as the place to call a second home while completing my education degree. Every time Abbey texts me about an event on campus, every time Morgan meets me for breakfast at Hickey, every time I see Alexis in Umin working, every time I smile at someone and hold the door open; I am reminded that at its core St. Bonaventure is a second home for me. I am incredibly grateful for being able to foster such great people to surround me with the quietest and gentlest forms of love. And there are two amazing years (that I can’t wait to pack full of good memories) left in my college career.