College=Freedom.. Or Does it?

I don’t think there should be rules in college like there are in high school.

I was at a Christian college this weekend, Mid America Nazarene University. As much as I love that their focus is church and God and that they have classes built around Christian principles, I don’t love how strict Christian colleges can be.

I used to always think I would go to a Christian college… until I actually visited one. The first one I visited was Olivet when I was in 8^th grade I believe. I learned that there was a dress code and you couldn’t wear shorts so automatically I decided I would never ever go there. That wasn’t all though. They had strict curfews, you had to check out of your dorm of you went anywhere overnight for the weekend because the RA’s would freak out of you were missing, and it was overall just very… controlling.

The controlling-ness of most Christian colleges is what turns me off from going there. I think college is about becoming independent. You shouldn’t need set rules, you should know your morals by now and college should be for learning to live by them. College is about deciding what YOU want to do and learning to live with the consequences if you screw up. You should know when you need to be in your dorm and go to bed; they shouldn’t have to force it upon you. You should know what is acceptable to wear by now; hopefully they don’t have to tell you. You should know how to be responsible and not have guys in your dorm 24/7, they shouldn’t have to constantly check and make sure there’s not a forbidden gender in the wrong dorm. You should know how to make your own responsible decisions by now, without being constantly monitored. If colleges don’t allow you to do that, you’re going to be naïve when you get outta there into the “real world.” Attending public colleges will give you more pressures, but that’s the only way you’ll learn to push past them and not give in. If they aren’t even there, you won’t understand some things that others do because you never experienced those pressures being given to you, so you may be confused about some things in the real world. You never had to make those decisions as a young adult in college so when you have to later, you won’t have experience knowing how to make the right choice because you never had the freedom to decide for yourself until then. It isn’t high school anymore and the college administration is not our parents. They shouldn’t even have the same kind of disciplining authority that high school teachers do with their students. College should be different, where people have to discipline themselves and the ones that learned what’s right and wrong will just know already not to make bad choices, and the ones who didn’t, should have matured more in high school because they really shouldn't need more lessons on right and wrong once they’re over 18.

I really do like Christian colleges and the lessons they teach, and I think they are good for new Christians still trying to figure out what’s right and wrong and feel like they need help staying in line in college. But I just don’t think college should be a correctional facility. The real world doesn’t have rules like that, and college is the best way to have that transition into the real world without these guidelines constantly being thrown at you.  People need to learn to make their own decisions based off of their morals, and if they can’t do what’s right, they probably don’t belong in college anyway and probably aren’t mature enough to be there. It’s a time to get serious because the rest of your life depends on it, and students shouldn’t have to rely on colleges to keep them in line, they should want to keep themselves in line and act on it by then. College is about being out on your own and learning how to handle it, without someone telling you.