Welcome back to the Orientation Blog! Today, Assistant Director James is giving some wisdom on one of our five messages of Orientation: Ask For Help.
ASK FOR HELP! Easier said than done, right? As an incoming college student, you are faced with what feels like an infinite number of new opportunities, but unfortunately, along with some of these new adventures come new difficulties. You might feel anxious about being away from your family for the first time, or perhaps your Intro to Biology course was not as easy as it was in high school. Regardless, Hope College has a wide variety of resources for students to take advantage of at no cost to them. Hope College students can apply for tutors, get counseling, work with peers in study groups and so much more. The best thing about all of these options is all you have to do is ask for help!
My entire life, I always struggled with asking for help. To me, asking for help showed vulnerability and weakness, it was admitting I wasn’t quite good enough. A simple fact of life is that this is just not the case. It wasn’t until a mentor of mine at Hope sat down with me and had a conversation on the subject matter. In our conversation, he gave me a quote that helped change my college experience and I think might be extraordinarily helpful to incoming students experiencing similar things to what I did. The quote he shared stated, “Asking for help doesn’t make you weak – it reveals strength, even when you don’t feel strong.”
“Asking for help doesn’t make you weak – it reveals strength, even when you don’t feel strong.”
In my opinion, there is a lot of power in this quote and remembering and practicing life with these words can make a big difference as I know it has in my life. College is an amazing place to be with so many amazing opportunities, but struggles are an inevitable part of life. So, remember, when these moments of need come about, don’t be afraid to ASK FOR HELP!!! 🙂
James Bird is a rising Senior from Rockford, MI studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
