How to Maintain Your Faith While Away at College

For most college students, college is not a time for reflecting on one’s religious convictions. However, for many college students, their faith is an important part of who they are, and maintaining it can be more important than anything else. Maintaining one’s religious convictions through the late night study sessions, extra curricular activities, and outrageous behavior of friends and classmates can be more than a mere challenge. It can test the strength of your faith. But if you are a college student looking to sustain your faith through whatever the academic life might throw your way, there is a way to do just that.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Like-Minded Friends
• A place to worship

1. Surround yourself with like-minded friends. While college is a time of meeting new people, remember that the people you surround yourself with can have a huge influence on who you become. There’s nothing wrong with having friends who think differently, worship differently, and behave differently than you do. But make sure you have a core group of friends who believe as you do and who can encourage and exhort you in your faith.

2. Find a place of worship. Surrounding yourself fellow worshipers and teachers will strengthen your faith and help you grow.

3. Get a schedule going. Just as you have a schedule for classes and extra curricular activities, make sure you carve some time out of your schedule to spend in prayer, study or worship. You can’t maintain your faith if you won’t practice it.

4. Avoid activities that do not jive with your religious convictions. It might seem harmless at first, but temptation can be strong. Such activities can pull you away from your faith, and before you know it, you may not recognize yourself anymore.