Letting Go of Your College Kid

Perhaps most of us – on the island or not – wonder how it will all come about once our child is a high school junior – where will life take them once college applications are looming? You can’t really plan it ahead of time, or at least that isn’t the route we chose to take. Sometimes you have to wait and see where life takes you.

Here on the island, going to community college doesn’t have the same pull as on the mainland. Community college is usually a great way to stay home and save money, but here that means taking online classes rather than going in person. Nope. No thanks. Especially not after those COVID years. Real interaction and in-person activities and classes are essential.

A few years ago, our son’s school took the high school kids to U-Days, an activity-filled weekend at Walla Walla University. We didn’t even know where Walla Walla was, much less what Walla Walla University was like.

While our son had good grades and has wanted to be an engineer since he was three years old (as many of you islanders know who have received his tech help, or have seen the Iron Man helmet he made), I figured he would come back from U-Days excited about the dorm food (endless pizza, desserts, soft serve, you know). To my surprise, when he returned from the visit, he had really resonated with the place. He loved the engineering department, and his next big comment was how much he liked Vespers, which is a worship service every Friday evening that has fantastic student-organized and student-led music – think a bunch of college kids up on a stage, playing guitars/drums/electric pianos, and belting it out really well. Our son isn’t super “churchie,” so this came as quite a surprise. But he explained that he really liked that the young people did all of it, and there was so much refreshing variety. In short, he felt WWU was the place for him.

Wow. You never know how it’s all going to play out, and here he had had a monumental experience regarding his future.

Give me a menu with lots of options, and I want to try everything on it. Give our son a menu with lots of options, and he’s always been the type who immediately knows exactly what he wants.

No tours at the University of Washington. No driving by Western Washington. He’d found his place.

I also know instrinsically why it felt like home – because it’s wholesome. I didn’t know wholesomeness existed on a college campus or in a dorm. Then again, Seventh-Day Adventists have taught me so much about how they do life. Orcas Christian School has been teaching me for years how they “do” school – intentionally wholesomely. I love wholesomeness and innocence. So much in our media spews out the opposite, as if it’s something to aim for, something that’s cool, something that everyone is. Not so. I am not Seventh-Day Adventist, but I quickly tire of places, events, parties, dances, and get-togethers where people start bringing elements in that aren’t innocent or family-friendly. While I went to the #2-ranked party school in the nation – UC Santa Barbara – it wasn’t for the college culture that was totally infused with the “norm” of drinking. I was a fish out of water in that department. Aside from the education, I went for the beauty, the ocean, the sunshine, the nature, the surfing, the beach-walking, the sunrises and sunsets, and the outdoor vibe.

Being here on the island and having our son go through his young school years in an atmosphere in which all the teachers and staff value wholesomeness has been massive for me as a mother. From the moment he was born, I wanted all the most innocent experiences for him that were possible. I stopped listening to the radio when he came into our lives unless it was NPR. We only watched educational or innocent shows and movies when he was growing up. And Orcas Christian was a staff of people all on the same page – an extension of caring, innocence-loving people guiding his heart and mind when I wasn’t there. The teachers at OCS even begin each day with a morning meeting to pray over the students and staff before the start of school.

Now Walla Walla University is an extension of that. I can’t believe how kind and loving and family-oriented the staff are. And prayerful. They have set up the culture of the college to feel safe, reliable, wholesome, and fun. They have all kinds of ongoing activities for the students that are good, clean fun – from midnight cereal buffets for midterm studiers to game nights with big, hilarious, crazy games that hundreds of kids can play all at once.

We love that our son is not a number. I feel like I could call any staff member at any moment and they would talk with me and respond to anything I need in the way that a family member would. I know they look out for all the kids and want the very best for them in the same ways that I do. Somehow some of them even know us by name!

That translates into students who come from wholesome families and schools feeling very comfortable and secure in their innocence. Students at WWU are overwhelmingly thoughtful, polite, mature, humble, unpretentious, sociable with adults, and motivated to do the best they can do. It’s almost a little unbelievable to experience as a parent. My husband and I feel blown away sometimes.

Every incoming student is also connected with a mentor right away, in order to meet with each other weekly. This is a wonderful thing, in case a student needs someone to talk to about classes, social stuff, emotions, home, or anything. Having someone there for your child anytime is such a comfort, even if they don’t feel lonely or unsure or any one of the gamut of emotions that are possible. Just knowing my son can call his mentor anytime is an awesome thing.

My husband, our younger son, and I have now visited Walla Walla University three times. The first for us was during a U-Days weekend in April of this year, two months before our older son’s high school graduation, when he had already been accepted.

Here is a look at what it was like visually, and it even snowed overnight and melted while we were there, so we got quite a well-rounded look at the seasons on campus!

The second time we visited was when we moved him in.

The third time was these past few days for family weekend, a month into our son’s freshman year.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Walla Walla University, or if you’ve only heard of it through secondhand conversations or because someone you know has a friend of a friend who goes there but may transfer, which was originally the only thing we knew about it, so we didn’t ever pay much attention. Now that I have experienced it firsthand, I felt strongly that many of you might like to have it on your radar.

Every parent of a young person here on the island will eventually have an 18-year-old. I am unbelievably relieved, thankful, and grateful for Walla Walla University. While nowhere is perfect, and students’ levels of innocence and worldliness vary, I had no idea a wholesome university like WWU even existed.

I thought you might like to know that it does.

Thank you, all of you who make Walla Walla University what it is.

Bonus: It takes less than an hour to fly to Walla Walla from SeaTac, something we learned due to injuries my husband and I both had that kept us from being able to drive there at times, and as you can see, you can find sunshine there too!