For a long time, I never wanted to end up at Hillsdale.
I had two older siblings at this school already, and from the start of the college search process in high school, I was bent on being the different one—the rebel. Besides, I wanted to major in astrophysics and math: how would a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere help with either? Schools with (ostensibly) more prominent reputations became part of my consideration long before Hillsdale did. When it finally came to senior year, the decision to apply came almost out of courtesy to my parents, who convinced me that it was at least worth the effort on The Common Application.
My first visit to Hillsdale September of that year caught me a little off guard. I had been there many times before because of family, and I thought I knew what to expect: a tiny campus, nothing to do, and not enough students to constitute a proper “college.” What I found instead was something of a different world: a place alive with the joy of learning, alive in its faith, and alive in the sheer intensity of its activity. It was Homecoming week when I visited: I went to Mock Rock rehearsals—and Mock Rock itself; I went to improv night; I went to church on Sunday before I left, and there the people I’d encountered over the last few days went out of their way to talk to me again.
During that visit, the music theory class I sat-in on blew my mind—and the students I met there would become some of my best friends once I came to campus a year later. One of the physics professors gave me a personal tour of the physics department and the radio telescope complex. As a visitor knowing nearly nobody, I was surprised by how easy it was to talk to everyone.
As I went home, visited other schools, and pondered my upcoming decision, I realized I was left with a burning desire for more of what I’d encountered at Hillsdale. So much of the learning at this school, I realized, happens personally; in a certain way, the pursuit of wisdom must be taken personally to really come to life in the human soul. The impression of genuine earnestness and vitality I’d encountered at this college stayed with me even through other school visits, and everywhere else seemed more detached, more abstracted from the real human element I’d found at Hillsdale.
This was the impression that I decided to trust when making that final decision to come, but despite that, some of my initial prejudices remained. What if what I had encountered as a prospective student was a fluke? What if this place really would begin feeling restrictively small? The summer after high school was spent in equal parts anticipation and trepidation.
I wasn’t fully convinced until I arrived freshman year. Of course, I still had more to learn about this place. I began to live out the idea of the liberal arts connecting what modernity sees as inherently disparate areas. I had hours-long conversations with the friends I had just met, and that element of learning proved just as critical as what I was experiencing in the classroom.
A kind of transformation was affected over this time, from viewing education as a utilitarian means to an end to seeing it as the art of becoming within the human person. We do not pursue learning here for the necessity of attaining information, but to attempt to attain something higher—the transcendent—through the lens of reason. This idea was ingrained in me within a rather short time, and something I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life.
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Paul Trainor comes to Hillsdale from Parker, Colorado, and while initially intending to study physics and mathematics, is now a music major with a philosophy minor. He is involved with the campus Catholic Society, the Hillsdale College Orchestra, and the Collegiate Scholars Program. Besides spending too long conversing in the dining hall, he loves discovering new music and trying to find wonder in the wider world.
