Canada

Saturday, April 06, 2013

TAYLOR UNIVERSITY here I come!!!!! I spent this past Thursday and Friday at Taylor University in Upland, IN. The campus houses just over 2,000 students and is made up of a fairly diverse group of people.

I toured two of the girls’ dorms, Olson and English (those are the dorm names). Olson has a downstairs lobby area complete with chairs, couches, a large flat screen TV, a standard sized kitchen complete with a toaster, refrigerator, microwave, oven, and cabinet space. There is also a laundry room on the main floor where you can do your laundry free of charge, except you must bring your own detergents. On the floors above the lobby, there are the girls’ dorm rooms. The floor plan of Olson is T-shaped. There are dorm rooms all along the edges and they house anywhere from 2-4 girls. The bathroom is shared by all the girls on your wing. So there are two bathrooms on each floor. In each bathroom there are multiple sinks, toilets, and showers with side walls and curtains in front of them. Each dorm room is pre-stocked with two stackable beds, two stackable shelves, two stackable desks, and two free standing closets. Olson is known for being a bit louder and more sociable. Then there is English. I personally liked English better, but my friend liked Olson better, so I think it really depends on your personality. The rooms in English appeared a bit bigger and are set up differently. The English floor plan looked more like a tree. There was the main “trunk” with “branches” coming off. At the end of each “branch” there were little circles. In the little circles girls would put couches, chairs, tables, refrigerators, or anything that would take up a lot of space in their dorm rooms. The dorm rooms were attached to the little circles. Guys are not allowed in girls rooms except one day a week for a certain number of hours, but guys are allowed in the downstairs lobby area until 1 am. The same goes for girls in guys’ rooms.

On Thursday night we went to a “Reject Show”. It is a talent show that was hilarious. Then we went out for a sweet treat. There is only one restaurant in town called “Ivanhoe’s”. They have 100 ice cream flavors! I had their Strawberry Flip Shake and Strawberry Shortcake. I would highly recommend both, but specifically the shortcake. It was absolutely delicious. Then we stayed the night with Katie Beadle. Thank you Katie for an awesome 24 hours! The next morning we had breakfast in the school cafeteria. The cafeteria has a normal variety of foods, but what really made this cafeteria stand out was its gluten free bread and soy milk. Since I try to avoid eating gluten and dairy, these food options would be quite a blessing. On Friday I sat through a meeting and two classes. Both of the classes I sat in on had less than twenty people in the class. I greatly appreciate this aspect of the school because that way the students and professors are able to connect with one another better. Speaking of connecting better, the president and his wife, “the first lady”J, live on campus and invite all the students on campus to come over to their house. All the students I had talked with had been invited over to the president’s home either to watch a ball game, have dinner, or just talk about life. The president seems to love his job and do well at it. Another thing I love about Taylor is their focus on chapel. There is no requirement to go to chapel, but everything closes down on campus and the students are encouraged to attend chapel. On Friday I went and sat in on chapel and was greatly encouraged to see the chapel filled up with people even though chapel is not required. I also appreciate how the school professors direct students to the Bible instead of telling the students their personal opinions because the professors know that only the Bible is the only truth. I know that I’m not even scratching the surface with everything that I like about Taylor University, but I’m going to end my enthusiasm here and let you go and visit Taylor yourself. Now the biggest problem with Taylor University is the cost. It costs approximately $36,000 a year! That is going to kill me financially, so I am looking into scholarships. I’ve been saving for college since I was little, but babysitting kids does not make enough money to pay for college.

On another note thank you for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated.

Taylor Good