Alumni Spotlight

As I come to the end of undergrad, I can clearly see how my time at NCA has shaped my academic success at UIUC. NCA’s academic rigor gave me a work ethic that has carried me through extremely time-consuming STEM classes. NCA’s focus on grammar, logic, and rhetoric has served me well in conducting internship presentations and in arguing for the relevance of my research.

Most importantly, I have seen how NCA has prepared me to be an ambassador for Christ in the “real world.” I look back on NCA’s literature and history classes fondly, because they exposed me to secular philosophies that I see today on campus. NCA has showed me that not everything flashy and new is true, but there is wisdom to be found in the Word of God.

PHOTO: LUKE AT AN OBSERVATORY IN LA ON AN INTERN TRIP.

Click on this link to read more about the award: https://www.valpo.edu/mathematics-statistics/scholarships-and-awards/

I am currently at Vanderbilt University studying elementary education, child studies, and special education.  The further I get into my college education, the more I appreciate how well NCA prepared for me the rigor of a college such as Vanderbilt.

*Read Heather’s review of Old Hat, by Emily Gravett, here.

*See more about Heather as Clara in the Nutcracker Ballet here.

I am pursuing higher education at Clemson University in the School of Architecture. After four years there I plan on receiving my Bachelor of Arts degree. Clemson’s architecture program positively challenges me, as it requires me to complete four years of studio work, a minor, foreign language, and study abroad. I currently have declared a minor in entrepreneurship and am studying Italian with hopes to study abroad in Genoa, Italy for a full semester during the Spring of 2018, my junior year. I look forward to this trip and plan on living with other students in my program at a villa in Genoa owned by the university while studying under local professors.

One of my favorite aspects of studying architecture is what is known as the “studio culture.” People say that the lights never turn off in studio; it is not uncommon for us architecture students to be finishing drawings or crafting models during the early hours of the morning. The studio environment provides a context for peers and professors to be constantly viewing and analyzing work in progress. Usually every two weeks or so, students showcase their work by pinning it on the wall and presenting it to a group of reviewers, usually our own professors as well as guest lecturers and graduate students in the School of Architecture. My time at NCA helped prepare me for these presentation sessions. My high school teachers certainly helped me to develop my ability to present ideas and defend them in a Q and A type interaction.

Finally, I am also involved with a student organization: the American Institute of Architecture Students, or AIAS. Last spring, I enjoyed the opportunity to travel with a group from Clemson to Savannah, Georgia, for AIAS’s South Quad conference. During the conference, we got to tour historic Savannah and the Savannah College of Art and Design as well as hear from keynote speakers on topics such as professional development in the practice of architecture, women leadership in architecture, and integration between architecture and different fields, such as the healthcare industry. This fall, as I begin my sophomore year, I will be filling the role of club secretary in the Clemson chapter of AIAS and would like to eventually pursue national involvement.

I graduated from NCA in May 2014.  I am currently in my Junior year at Baylor University in Waco, TX.  I am scheduled to graduate Baylor in May 2018 with a Bachelors of Science in Neuroscience.

I spent my first two years as part of the Leadership Living and Learning Center where I served as a mentor for incoming students in my sophomore year.  Although I have since left the program to move off campus, I learned a  lot about leadership.  One of the things that we were required to do as part of the leadership classes that we took was to consider those who led us and how we had led before coming to Baylor.  I  was able to pinpoint how different teachers had been fantastic leaders in high school. In many schools, science teachers only teach science.  At NCA, our science teacher also led the student worship team.  My math teacher was over the student council.  My Latin teacher also taught history, literature, culture, and Bible class over my years at NCA.  All of these people taught me what leadership is.  Because of the things that I learned interacting with these teachers, people who cared about more than their students learning subject material, I have been able to be a better mentor, a better leader.  I have been able to care about more than the task at hand. I learned more about leadership through the people at NCA than many of the other students learned in large schools with hundreds of formal leadership opportunities.

Baylor has been a wonderful next step for me.  However, NCA is the reason that I have done so well. College forces students to do more than repeat facts.  It is about thinking through processes, answering why, understanding what happens if something changes.  At NCA, I learned to critically think through things and understand them.  I did not realize it at the time, but that was the best thing that I could have learned.  Being able to think critically about subject matter has been invaluable.  I have been able to continue to develop this is an organization that I am a part of called BUMEDS, which stands for Baylor University Medical Ethics Discussion Society.  We have the opportunity to look at ethically compromising situations and critically think through the best course of action and all potential outcomes.

Summer of 2016 I had the opportunity to intern at Elkay Manufacturing in Oak Brook, IL in the Customer Care department.  I had some great experiences getting to work with people across the country that all had different backgrounds.  My supervisors often complemented my work and work ethic and all I could think was that at NCA, I had to do my best and it became so ingrained that I continue to have a drive to do better.

Sic ’em Bears!