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Leap of Faith

Spirituality and Religion in Higher Education
November 30, 2015 Hannah Retzkin-Simson

To the lost, lonely graduate student or young professional,

Trust the process!

Have faith!

Everything will work out!

I was told all of these things including: you will finish grad school and you will land the perfect job. Yet, one of my most poignant memories of graduate school was sitting in my car crying into my phone, trying to halt my partner from moving to Chicago.

“This was a mistake.”

In college I grew from an awkward high school student to a flourishing college woman. I was a Student Affairs professional’s dream! I began as an uninvolved first year student and accumulated different leadership positions and opportunities throughout my undergraduate tenure. I felt as if I had been nurtured beyond what I had experienced as a teenager. I truly came out of my shell. At the end of my journey I cried at commencement, not from joy but from the seeping nostalgia.

Similar to many other folks in the field of Student Affairs, a mentor sparked my interest in obtaining a Master’s degree in Higher Education and going into the profession. Although my undergraduate University has one of the best ranked Student Affairs programs in the country, I took a leap of faith and packed up my life. I moved to the Midwest and surrounded myself with unfamiliarity. I transitioned from a large public institution to a private, faith-based one. As a non-Catholic I was surprised by the crucifixes on the classroom walls, the month long Christmas celebrations, and the priests and nuns residing within the residence halls. And although this was a starkly different, I learned more about myself and my burgeoning spirituality than I had in my previous adventures. I learned how to fold Jesuit values into my Jewish upbringing and agnostic tendencies. I learned how to overcome challenges to my authenticity. I learned how to grow into my self-awareness. It was clear to me who I didn’t want to be as a professional.

Having faith went beyond prayer. It was trusting my soul and honoring the divine in myself. Knowing and believing that when I leapt I would not fall; and if I did I’d be able to stand-up again, even stronger. My experience as a graduate assistant was the one of most trying things I had to persevere through. Every day I was challenged to grow while feeling unappreciated and forgotten. I felt like I didn’t matter. I wondered: if I missed a meeting would anyone realize it? I have a vivid memory of picking up some paperwork afterhours from one of the offices I worked in and flushing from embarrassment that my name was not included on the birthday list. I felt desolate, lonely. But I also learned! I learned how to discern.  I learned how to reflect on negative experiences and turn them into blessings.

St. Ignatius Loyola called discernment the “motions of the soul.” Professionally I have had to call upon my ability to discern many times. To reflect on an opportunity; to trust my capacity to make the right decisions for myself. Unlike many of my classmates I did not have a job when I graduated. I spent many days after graduation meditating, believing that the right job would present itself if I remained faithful. And it did! Trusting and having faith are two wings of the same bird. How can you trust that everything will be okay if you do not have faith that it actually will? How do you have faith that you can persist if you do not trust that the process will reveal itself? That there is no wrong path; the path we choose is the one we always chose.

The two years of graduate school flew by and when graduation came I donned my hood at my Master’s commencement ceremony. Again, I cried, not from seeping nostalgia but from a percolating sense of pride in my accomplishment. I had lived through the process and it changed me. It had made me a stronger professional, a kinder person. Muscle fibers tear before they fuse together stronger. It had not been the experience that I had wanted, but it was the one I needed.   

My advice to you, reader, is to believe. Believe in the beauty of growing pains! Believe in a higher power! But mostly believe in yourself! Find faith in yourself. You are a lifelong leaner. You are powerful. You can endure all. When presented opportunities, discern. Think about them not only with your head, but with your soul, with your heart. Perhaps most important of all  is to remember to trust the process, have faith, and that everything will work out.

With love and endearment,

Hannah Retzkin-Simson