Students gathered together for dinner at the Coburn Dining Hall on Thursday, Sept. 20, to hear Alex Huguenard, director of the Vocatio Center, speak at Dine and Discuss: Intentional Conversations about Leadership, a monthly event hosted by the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement where students can hear common topics in college that can be beneficial later in life.
As director of the Vocatio Center, a place where students can go to learn more about their future career and find opportunities to get involved on campus and in the community, Huguenard’s hope for this position is to encourage students to identify their God given gifts as well as provide them with opportunities to put those gifts into play.
While speaking at Dine and Discuss, Huguenard’s goal was to inform the students on how to make a big impact in the small amount of time they’re in college. He urged students to use the short amount of time they have in college as a building block for the rest of their lives and career.
“Patterns you are making now are the ones you will carry with you for the rest of your life,” Huguenard said. “You should strive to create those patterns that glorify the Lord in all you do.”
He stated several different ways to make an impact, including Gospel and kingdom preparedness, such as church membership and getting involved with your local church. He also encouraged students to find a family who is willing to take students in, to cook a meal for them, to have a place for them to do laundry and to just have a home environment that they are always welcomed in.
Another way Huguenard advised to make an impact is personal and professional preparedness.
“With excellence comes opportunities that might not otherwise have been given to you,” Huguenard said. “You have to push yourself.”
In order to make an impact, students should want to work diligently at whatever trade they might be involved in.
“Every person’s path looks different from the person next to them,” Kristen Pickens, a junior business marketing major, said. “For me, this statement put into perspective my opportunity to impact people in my own creative and special way.”
Huguenard also encouraged students to be confident and not discouraged in the idea of college being a time of preparation.
“I was inspired to be confident in the fact that this time is a time of preparation to not only go do what God has called me to do, but to do that job to the best of my ability,” Pickens said.
In closing, Huguenard used the analogy of a soldier going to basic training. That soldier does not finish basic training and remain still, in the same mindset. That soldier goes out and does what they have trained for. In the same way, Huguenard encouraged students to go out and use what they have learned through the preparation process so that they might be successful in making an impact.