Mackenzie Norman

Picture this: I’m sitting in the backseat of my family’s SUV, staring at the huge line of cars in front of us. We’re idling on a giant hill, and I swear at any moment someone’s car trunk is going to burst open and spill an odd assortment of bed sheets, movie posters, string lights, and microwaves onto the pavement. It’s move-in day. The single-most anticipated and anxiety-inducing moment of freshman year of college. 

When I left for college, I was moving about six hours away from my family. Traveling from practically-Florida South Georgia all the way to the tip top of North Georgia. It was no small feat. And it was no minor transition. My college experience from that first memory on the mountain outside my dorm building all the way until the day I walked across the graduation stage was monumental and transformative. So much so, that I wished someone could have written me a book about what to expect and how to survive. 

True, the way you’ll live out your years of university time will not be the same as mine. We probably won’t live on the same hall, I won’t attend your Debate Team meetings, you may not take a single English class, and your cafeteria food might actually be good (I highly doubt that one though). But I can say that after experiencing all of college and talking with at least three years worth of freshman, I’ve stood in your shoes. I’ve lived much of what you have lived or will live while in college. And while I want you to feel the same cloud-nine joys I did, I also don’t want you to walk straight into the deep, dark pits that I did. 

What you’ll hear from me is what I learned in my “first quarter” of college. I’m out to be honest- brutally honest- about the mistakes I made and about the things you must remember if you want to avoid them. These are the stories I’d tell you, the questions I’d ask you, if we were seated across from each other at Starbucks, or at the same table in the Student Center. God has something He wants to say, something He wants you to hear. And just like you’d be closely listening to me spin the tale of getting my car stuck on a curb (true story), I want you to give God the same undivided attention. Because His Word is the most captivating, life-giving story ever written.

 My biggest hope for you, reader, is that you end college knowing and loving God more than when you began. So the best place to start is here. The very beginning.