I attended Oberlin College and Conservatory in Oberlin, Ohio from 2006-2011. I was a double degree student, completing the degree requirements both for a Bachelor’s of Music in Organ (Performance) and a Bachelor’s of the Arts in French. Truthfully, many of my high school classes dispatched a majority of my liberal arts requirements, for which I was grateful but also a little disappointed… I am someone who deeply believes in the liberal arts and a broad education heading into the 21st century. During my later time at Oberlin, and after, I was very interested in the work of Ken Robinson, who gave a fantastic TED Talk on schools and creativity in 2006. The ways our industrialist education system really squashes creativity, and the necessity of creativity in every aspect of life is in large part what influences my current work (music educator on Outschool.com) as well as my thoughts about the Church in the 21st century.
One of the important things to happen during my five years of undergrad was a study-abroad experience my third year. I went to Paris. I enrolled at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris, studying organ with Marie-Louise Langlais. But my main draw there was being in an international study-abroad program focused on Critical studies-structuralism, post-structuralism, and other French philosophy brain games. It was super fun, to be honest! I deconstructed even more of what I had been thinking about education/schooling-wise, and embraced that word before I ever encountered it in the religious sphere of my life, where it generally refers to White, American/New World Evangelical Christians who are rethinking the culture and religious views handed down to them. And because of the nature of Evangelicalism, that brings down the faith and theology, too. But I digress.
As a part of this program, I was enrolled in Paris III-La Sorbonne Nouvelle and Paris VII-Paris Diderot. I tried out a couple of classes at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, but I wasn’t super interested in them. I ultimately selected a master’s-level class at Paris Diderot for my college placement. It was about the development of the novel as a major literary form in the 19th century… You know, not at all niche topics 😆. What I gained from that semester though was so much more than deconstruction, novels, and art history (oh yeah, the best class was the art history class because almost every week we were in a different museum). It was the knowledge that I could RELAX, have a bit more of a social life, explore, and enjoy the semester while still learning a LOT. I have often thought of this semester as the one that broke me, not because I was overwhelmed and stressed, but because it taught me that my modus operandi of overwhelm and stress was not necessary to learn, grow, and contribute.
In many ways, that ‘breaking’ was what threw me into finally confronting my depression. Anxiety had been my weapon against it. But I didn’t want to live like that anymore. Here I am, fifteen years later, still finding new stones of depression, anxiety, shame, and self-acceptance to overturn. I am honestly so much happier than ever before, but it’s a journey.
If you’re following me this Bloganuary, I hope you’ll follow this post up with yesterday’s, about play. It’s a big part of what I started learning during my study abroad trip in 2008. So much of what we are at any point in time can be traced backwards. It’s daunting at times, but I’m thankful for it. Even starting this blog post, I wasn’t sure what would come of it, but I see even more clearly how the places I attended, both colleges and other, affected me in positive (and negative!) ways. And then I didn’t even get to how I met my husband at Oberlin! But that’s ok-the story will save for another day 😉
Actually an Artist 
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