By Paula Diaz
Features Editor
With nearly 20% of this year’s Vindicated Class classified as undecided and even more with a declared major on paper but unsure of what path they’d like to take with it, deciding what the future holds career-wise is not an easy decision for everyone.
While four years in college seems like a long enough time to decide what to major in, Asbury’s very own coordinator of Institutional Effectiveness and New Student Advising, Andrea Edin, is here to help undecided students on their path to success. Andrea, while new to Fletcher-Early, isn’t new to Asbury.
Besides her current position she’s worked on campus for four years in Institutional Effectiveness (which deals with Asbury’s accreditation), the School of Education, the School of Graduate and Professional Studies, and has even served as an adjunct faculty member. As the academic advisor for all of Asbury’s undecided students, Andrea has been assisting students in putting together their schedules while helping them choose a major.
With all sorts of individualities, passions, gifts, and interests, she has the unique chance to help undecided students in their search to find God’s calling for them.
“Choosing a major can be an overwhelming decision for a lot of reasons. Many students don’t feel a “call” on their lives like they see in many of their friends. They’ve never had an answer to the question, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Some haven’t identified their strengths and spiritual gifts and some are facing pressure from family and friends,” Andrea said when speaking on the reason for indecisiveness in several of the underclassmen. “I think a lot of students associate the choice of major with the line of work they’ll have for
the rest of their lives or with a salary range. All of that adds up to a very stressful question to answer at [the age of] 18.”
And by the looks of her schedule, Andrea is being kept quite busy during her daily work hours. With each session being about an hour long, she’s had the chance since the start of this semester to dig deep into each student’s mind, mainly that of freshmen and some sopho- mores, and see them for all they really are.
“I love getting to work with students one-on-one and talking with them about their passions, gifts, and interests – the variety is amazing! It’s so fun to see how unique each of our students are and how unique God’s call is on each of them,” she said.
So while feeling lost at the start of a new phase of life is completely normal and something that everyone may experience at least once during their time in college, feeling frustrated and uncertain about the future is not something that needs to be experienced alone. With Andrea’s help any undecided student can get back on track to being focused on the future ahead of them.
Reaching Andrea, who can be found on the second floor of Fletcher- Early, first office on the right, or by simply e-mailing her to andrea.edin@asbury.edu, is the first step into making this change from undecided to confidently decided.
“Many undecided students I’ve talked with are tired of being asked what they want to do because they simply don’t know yet. I think it’s important to care for these students and re- mind them that all God is asking of you is to be faithful to him. He’ll give you everything you need to do that. He’ll lead you through the dark.”