Freshmen, transfer students settle into life at Concordia

From left to right: Nathan Sivert, Bailey Boschert, David Rodriguez, Paige Schuster and Aydan Toth.

Photo credit: Bailey Boschert

By Sam Olson

This story is featured in the September print edition of the Sower newspaper. 

This fall there are 330 freshmen and 62 new transfer students adjusting to college life at Concordia, getting into the swing of classes and exploring activities put on by the many student groups on campus.

Concordia offers a lot of diversity in its educational programs. It is a place for students to try new things and get involved, all of which play into some students’ decisions to enroll at Concordia.

Transfer student Cayden Carrasco, a junior majoring in theology and biblical language studies, said his area of study was one of the reasons he left his previous college.

“I realized it’s not what God wanted for my life,” Carrasco said. “He wanted me to be a youth pastor and street preacher, so that’s why I changed to theology and biblical language studies.”

Freshman Andrew Kohlmeyer, a classical liberal arts major, said that Concordia offers Greek and Latin, a now less-common practice at colleges, was part of his decision-making.

Andrew Kohlmeyer. Photo: Andrew Kohlmeyer.

“Well, I found out about the Classical Lutheran Educator thing, and about how it teaches the classical languages, Greek and Latin, and since I love those languages, I’m like, ‘I want to do that,’” said Kohlmeyer.

Concordia Nebraska, a member of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Concordia University System, has built its identity around being a Christian school. Students also listed community as one of the reasons they chose to be a Bulldog.

Aydan Toth, a freshman majoring in biology and pre-medical studies, said Concordia has a “very good community; also the Christian environment is a plus.”

Mason Lockwood, a freshman studying computer science and a member of the programming team, agreed, saying that Concordia is a very welcoming community.

A number of students also noted their connections to campus, such as family, as a reason to enroll.

“A bunch of my teachers from my school came here, and so it just inspired me to come here as well,” said David Rodriguez, a freshman studying pre-engineering and participating on the speech and debate team.

Kohlmeyer said that his sister Madalyn, a sophomore, is studying here and encouraged him to come to Concordia.

Students came from a variety of places. While many of them are from Nebraska, many more come from out of state.

(From left to right) David Rodriguez, Maddie Kearns, Aydan Toth, Bailey Boschert, and Mason Lockwood attend the Bulldog football game on Sept. 13. Photo: David Rodriguez.

Rodriguez and Nathan Sievert, a transfer student studying theater, are both from Norfolk, Nebraska, about an hour and a half drive north of Seward. Freshman Bailey Boschert comes from Lee Summit, Missouri, and freshman Maddie Kearns comes from St. Charles, Missouri. Even farther from home is Toth, who is from Phoenix, Arizona.

Despite their widely-varying activities and majors, students claimed a lot of similar hopes and worries about the upcoming school year. These mainly involved time management, procrastination and homework loads.

“Worries would be [long nights] of school work, just managing my time and prioritizing actually getting good grades,” said Toth.

“I hope that I can get my homework done on time and, like, stop procrastinating,” said Kohlmeyer. “So far, I haven’t missed an assignment, but I’ve come kind of close, so I keep procrastinating and I don’t want to keep procrastinating.”

Carrasco said his most difficult class was Greek and that it took up a lot of his time, but his first thought was that he’s struggling with making friends. He said he finds everybody to be very nice and that it’s great to be surrounded by fellow believers, but it is difficult to connect with people on campus as he focuses on classes. He also left a large friend group at his previous college.

Brothers Cayden (left) and Duncan (right) Carrasco. Photo: Cayden Carrasco.

“Now I’m just, like, here and I have my brother, and just a couple other people,” said Carrasco. He said he believes his struggle is reaching out to people, due to classes, not that people were unwilling to reach out to him.

Most newcomers did not have issues mixing with returning students. Boschert and Toth said they were two out of the three freshmen in their music appreciation class, and Sievert said he had no problems connecting with returning students in his theater classes or extracurriculars.

“They’ve welcomed me with open arms into this community that you have here at Concordia,” Lockwood said.