My first night at college, I felt so alone. I was supposed to have dinner with my dad, who had brought me up to school and helped me unpack, but he had had to leave earlier than planned to beat an incoming storm. Without him keeping me grounded, doubts started to creep in.
I wasn’t sure about coming up here because there hadn’t been any grand signs like I’d heard about. There was a stillness and a calmness though, so I went for it. Other students came here for the same reason; senior Audrey Fowles said, “I'm glad that I came here because it definitely felt like the right decision, and all my anxiety was gone once I decided that.”1 For me, that calmness was all but gone now. I could do nothing but hope I hadn’t made a mistake.
It was about halfway through my degree that I learned I hadn’t.
The first couple of semesters I had weren’t bad by any means. They were fine. I took some classes I really liked and some that I struggled with. I got a job as an early morning custodian and made friends. But as I neared the halfway point, my doubts reemerged and grew stronger. What was I doing? What was the purpose of being here? What good had two years of early mornings and late nights gotten me that I couldn’t have gotten somewhere else; somewhere where I could have had my family to rely on?
My answer came during the first semester of my third year, in the form of a teacher. I had never had him before, and suddenly I was taking six credits from him. His classes ruled most of my Tuesdays and Thursdays. But he was a kind teacher, and he had offered to meet with his students one-on-one to talk about what English-related jobs there were on campus. I took him up on that offer.
It might have been the best decision I ever made in school.
When I got there, the first thing he asked was, “How are you doing?” I tried to verbally wave it off, with an easy “I’m fine.” I didn’t want to get into it with a stranger, and that answer usually worked. It didn’t this time.
“What does ‘fine’ mean?” he asked. I froze. That was the first time I’d ever had a teacher ask that. I tried to brush it off, to give a list of reasons why “fine” really did mean fine. I mentioned that while I was going through things, there wasn’t any need to worry because I was working through them with a therapist.
At the end of my little spiral, he asked what he could do to help me. I was working with a therapist and that was good, but did I need any help with school things? Extra time for assignments, modified projects, anything like that. “You're in two of my classes, so I’m in
charge of at least nine hours of your week. I’m more than happy to work with you if you need anything.”
I had known that BYUI said it was a student-focused school. Elder David A. Bednar had said that BYUI “is uniquely positioned . . . to show and lead the way in applying the principle of ‘one by one,’”2 and I knew other students had gone to teachers for help and gotten it.
Senior Chad Bell said, “I love the faculty here at BYUI. Honestly, they're some of the best people I've ever met, and they're definitely the best instructors I've ever had.” His statistics teacher “created this love in his classroom, both for each other, the other students, and a love for learning and connecting that to gospel principles.” Bell continued, “I think the thing that most inspired me was sitting next to other students and just the love that he expressed, both for me and for them, especially when they were struggling. He always encouraged us to resubmit assignments and keep working on our projects to be the best that they could. And he took enormous amounts of time to guide us and was always so responsive. It was just amazing to me.”3
I knew this kind of thing could happen; Elder Clark G. Gilbert had said that “one of the hallmarks of BYU-Idaho [is] the personal investment of faculty who unapologetically build their professional focus on teaching and advising students.”4 I hadn’t believed it could ever apply to me because I was far too nervous and shy to ask for help, but it did, and I am so grateful.
The Lord blessed me, as He has so many others, with a teacher who cared about me enough to offer help that I desperately needed but didn’t know how to ask for. What was supposed to be a half-hour discussion about jobs turned into an hour-long meeting where I received help for my schooling, my work, and though it wasn’t touched on directly, my spiritual well-being.
Sitting in a chair in my teacher’s office, I felt such a strong spirit of love from my Heavenly Father. I realized that He knew what I was going through, that He cared, that I was important to Him, and that He hadn’t just abandoned me to make my way through college. He knew me, He loved me, and He had guided me to Brigham Young University-Idaho.
My Heavenly Father knew that I needed to have the experience of being taught by a teacher who cared more about me as a student than a grade in a class that I thought I was doomed to forever fail at. He knew that through this specific influence I would learn that I wasn’t a fool who was trying to trick herself into thinking she was a good writer, or a solo pillar who had to handle her challenges on her own.
The experience I had with that teacher fundamentally changed me, in ways that couldn’t have happened at a community college. It changed my entire view of myself and my Heavenly Father. I find myself agreeing with Paula Dillingham, a single mother and fellow student, who said, “despite everything that I've done and been through, I am worthy to be a child of God . . . This is a healing town.”5 I hadn’t known that I needed healing, or how much healing I needed until that moment.
The process of seeing the Lord’s hand in bringing me to BYUI was a long and slow one. I had started to convince myself that I would never complete it because the Lord didn’t have anything to do with it. But I stuck to my choice and kept on pushing, and when I needed help the most, the Lord was there—acting through a teacher and a school that I’d been led to. The Lord knew what I needed long before I did. I will always be grateful for listening to the small, quiet prompting that guided me to Brigham Young University-Idaho.