By Lauren Purdom

Whenever I tell people I will be graduating from Pacific Union College, 90 percent of the time they have no idea as to its whereabouts. Coming from a highly populated city and high school, to joining the Pioneers was a major transition and adjustment for me. Not only was it in a city that barely had 4,000 people but it was on a hill. It is also a private Christian-based college affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. I was born and raised in a city in Southern California and went to a high school with over 2,000 students. Can you imagine the hallways! Seeing how I have played sports all my life and continued by playing on PUC’s women’s volleyball team, I feel like that made my transition into such a small college a whole lot easier.

Sports and sports teams even are full of diversity. In a sense so is PUC. This is one of the major reasons why I was probably able to adapt to the college when got up here. I already had the skill set to meet new people and create bonds by getting to know people and hang out with them. It also made it easier because when you join a team you meet a lot of people from different backgrounds you automatically have something in common with—playing sports!

Another reason why being an athlete helped me with my transition was because I was faced with adversity before I even got to college. Nothing and nowhere is perfect so you are always going to face obstacles and challenges. I played multiple sports as a child and was on two sports teams in high school so I was dealing with a variety of personalities. Because of PUC’s diverse population, I encountered numerous amounts of individuals from all over the world. These students came from a list of backgrounds and all were unique in their own way.

All in all, I feel being an athlete all my life was beneficial towards my transition into becoming a student-athlete here at PUC. I can sincerely say that the skills you learn and develop when you are on a team or in a teamwork environment not only build your confidence but are everlasting and will definitely help you with future endeavors.