Worth the Trip
Written by Jenny Wiland
When I first arrived on Hillsdale’s campus, I thought most of my classmates would live within a few hours’ drive. I didn’t expect others to travel from across the country to a small town in rural Michigan. So when I first met a student from Hawaii, I was shocked. And it didn’t stop there—I met Pennsylvanians, Floridians, Idahoans, and a surprising number of Californians. I’ve had roommates from Utah, California, Georgia, and Texas. Every time I walk through my dorm’s parking lot, I see license plates from Iowa as well as Illinois, Oklahoma, and Ohio. I only have to drive an hour-and-a-half to go between home and Hillsdale, but some of my friends have to fly two, four, even twelve hours to get here, not counting layovers and drive time. It got me thinking: for these students, Hillsdale is worth the trip, and here’s why.
Hannah Cheng, ’23, came to Hillsdale all the way from Honolulu, Hawaii. For her, the campus was familiar. Since her brother had graduated from Hillsdale, she’d visited more than once. This meant Hannah had a lot to consider when choosing her own path for undergrad. While she considered going to an art school, she also wanted to find a place where she would remain sound in her values. “I wanted to have solid friends that I would relate to and who would also help me be a better person. And all the marketing things the College says—it’s going to be academically challenging! It’s going to change your life! I bought all that, and found that it’s true.”
Unlike Hannah, Konrad Verbaarschott, ’24, didn’t get to visit campus before enrolling. With Temecula, California, as his hometown, it would have been quite the trip. But through talking with an admissions counselor and alumni who went to his church, he got to understand what campus was like. The importance of both Christianity and community drew him in. “I was going to be poured into and be able to pour into people in a really intimate way, and that was fascinating to me,” he says. “The intimacy everywhere—from dorm life to the relationships with professors to the friendships people had made—that all fascinated me, and I really wanted that.”
In certain ways, Hillsdale turned out to be even better for Konrad than he had imagined. “I had this mental image we were going to be living in cabins and stuck inside all day as storms billowed, working under a single dim light in the corner of a room all day, struggling through Aristotle,” he admits. “I’d always thought of Hillsdale as this far-off monastery where people go to become ‘big brain’ and deprive themselves of all earthly enjoyment for a time. This sounds like something I need to do, but not something I want to do. So I will do it for the need, but not the want. Now, I never want to leave.”
Even without isolating cabins or constant storms, going to college a long way from home comes with its own struggles. “It’s hard to keep in touch with people over the summer. I can’t just drive and see them. And also, the time difference makes it harder to keep in touch,” explains Hannah. Even so, she says, “I’m happy being here. The things that I have here to enjoy are worth the distance.”
Of course, there’s a big difference in climate between Hannah’s Hawaiian home and Hillsdale. “It’s very cold,” Hannah notes. But it’s not all bad, either. “In Hawaii, the weather is all the same. But then I came here and it’s always different, every single day. It’s so cool!”
But the weather isn’t all that’s different at Hillsdale. Konrad found the culture refreshing. “Part of the academic environment is that, when you mention something school-related, someone else is going to know what you’re talking about because of the core curriculum,” he says. But more than that, “It’s cool to be around people who want the same thing, and really want it….Whatever you’re here to do, there are other people who are here to do it as well, and you can come alongside them and grow together.”
Hillsdale’s 1,500 students come from nearly every state, as well as over a dozen foreign countries. Yet the things that bind us together are stronger than regional differences. As Konrad says, “The heart people have for certain vocations, their dedication to their work, the way they treat people and engage with other people, obviously their faith, their passion for learning—those are the things that make Hillsdale students Hillsdale students.”
Jenny Wiland, ’23, studies rhetoric and public address with a minor in psychology. She loves her cat, dark chocolate, and writing stories, especially science fiction and fantasy.
Published in September 2022