Religious Studies

 When I first came to Elon I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do entirely. I knew that I wanted to end up somewhere in business, but I hadn’t thought too far beyond that. I have always been inspired by my parents who both went on to become. However, I knew that was not for me. I have had a tenuous relationship with religion my whole life. I grew up in a very conservative church that my family decided to leave when we got older. I always found the study of religion to be interesting. In my local area though there were a lot of religious zealots, but as it turned out very few of them knew very much about biblical history of context. When I was signing up for classes freshman year I saw an interesting religious studies class. The listing just said Islamic History. That was a topic that I knew very little about. I walked into the class a little nervous as it was so far out of my previously studied topics. I was lucky to have an incredible professor named Dr. Sells. She helped to guide me through the class and helped me find a passion for the subject. With this encouragement, I decided to make religious studies a minor for me. I had no idea that the minor would force me to take such a hard look at myself in ways that made me feel uncomfortable at times.  Throughout the course of the minor, I took a wide variety of classes. They ranged from Satan in America to classes such as Moral Domination and Subversion. All of these classes pushed me in ways I didn’t expect and helped me to find an inner piece. In these classes, I thought of God in ways that I never had before. They not only pushed me spiritually but personally as well. Through all of those classes, I have been able to make more sense of my complicated religious past. It helped me to deal with some of the trauma that I had tried to ignore stemming from some of the self-hate that I had from my youth. With all of these classes, I realized that it was not enough to happy in the moment. My complicated spiritual had to be dealt with too. Throughout the course of the minor, I was able to make sense of that and truly find a new happiness stemming from my past that I thought I would never find. 

wc 416