Late Night Musings

I’ve got a feeling that I’m not the only seminarian that has felt insufficient at one point or another in his or her career as a student. Tonight, I’ve been tossing and turning in my bed for about two hours. (Not a good thing!) This is somewhat problematic considering that I need to be at North Central University at 7:00 am to assist a colleague as his teaching assistant.

As I lay in bed tonight I can’t help but think of my greatest fear: What if I don’t get into a PHD program? It’s a few years into the future—but it often weighs heavily on my mind. Since I’ve been restless I’ve spend the last hour or so visiting some of the “top flight” school admission pages. I find myself visiting these websites when I need a "reality check." Do I measure up? It looks like I “kind of” do. I still need to take the Devil's Handmaiden aka the GRE. It’s easy to feel inferior when you have working knowledge of four languages when an institution wants you to have five—or six—or seven (good grief!). It’s also easy to feel this way when you look at the admissions count for previous years. One school boasted that it netted six hundred and eighty some applicants to their divinity school and accepted a paltry six. Those odds aren’t too great. I take heart, however, knowing that Luther Seminary provides us with accredited and noteworthy research and scholarship skills that will more than likely carry many of us into future education programs. It's also important to note that you don't have ANY chance of getting into a program if you don't try. I suppose all that we can do as students is make the absolute best of the institution where we are learning—and hope that future institutions will give us a shot. I plan on using this semester as a way of showcasing my skills to their full potential with Church, school, and “work.” Shouldn't every semester be like that though?

-Dan