老司机传媒

We have now come to the final few weeks of the school year, and for those Freshmen in the J.N. Andrews Honors program, this means thinking about their worldview. Ask any Honors student and they’ll remember the worldview paper–and their close friends at the time probably will remember them talking about it, too. It is the culmination of Western Heritage, the two-semester, total of ten-credit course that is foundational to the Honors program and typically taken in an Honors Scholar’s Freshman year. Throughout the course, students examine history, theology and philosophy, and fine art originating in the various time periods and countries of “The West.”

At its climax, Western brings the Worldview Paper. This is a ten-page paper, the purpose of which is to take everything you have been shown over a school year of learning and come up with an answer to it, or perhaps it would be better to say, a response. The class presents you with options of what you can believe, and it shows you what people before you have believed, but it ends with a question: what do you believe? Your job is simply to decide . . . and then write ten pages about it. :P

Myself being in Western this semester, I can speak to this being a fascinating experience. You first have to decide what you actually believe in the first place, which wouldn’t seem like it should be a challenge. But even for me, who has a pretty good idea of what I believe–at least what I don’t believe–it wasn’t easy to consolidate it all down into something communicable. It’s this process that’s really valuable, because it forces you to clarify your random thoughts and gather your miscellaneous ideas into a solid framework or foundation. And a foundation is really important, so it’s good to be able to disperse the fog and actually be able to see it and know what it is.

I think it’s good to do this even if you aren’t forced to by a class. We’ve just spent eight months at school, away from home, away from home church, in and around new ideas and other young people–the perfect conditions for new beliefs to form. Most of us at Andrews have grown up in a world that presents us with a set of beliefs. And oftentimes we end up taking them, which is okay! But over time, especially when in an environment like university, we often develop and grow–sometimes without even realizing it or fully grasping the implications of it on our overall belief structure. So it’s good to take stock of ourselves every now and then. And what better time to do so than now, at the end of one such period of openness?

I challenge you to take a few days once exams are over and home has reclaimed you to ask yourself the question: what do you believe? (I’ll here point out that it’s okay if you don’t have all the answers or if some aspects of your worldview conflict with each other; you don’t need all the answers right now, but it is useful to know the questions you’re working with.) Journal, write out some bullet points, talk it over with someone–do whatever works best for you. But examine it and organize it. Importantly, communicate it in some way–that’s how you’ll clarify it in your own mind.