TKC Letters Project - Habit Formation

I hope you don’t know what it is to be stuck and despair.

But maybe you too have felt that burden—the weight of yearning to do good that seems forever beyond your reach. It was this heaviness that drove me to office hours one Tuesday, asking questions about Augustine as if my life didn’t depend on the answers.

After a series of what can only be described as abstract hypotheticals, the professor stopped me. “What’s really going on?” He asked.

I couldn’t stop the story (or the tears) from pouring out. It wasn’t long before I had two professors seated side-by-side between four white-washed walls—what passes as an “office” in NYC—passionately walking me through one of the most difficult nights of my life.

It didn’t end there. Over the following weeks, I received emails with their prayers and verses of encouragement. Occasionally, I would come into class to find a snack waiting in my usual seat. In a few weeks, I broke chains of a habit that had held me for two long years.

You may be asking, “Why are you telling this story? It doesn’t have a lot to do with your college education.”

It’s because King’s is about more than an education.

I know I’m not the only student at The King’s College whose life has been radically changed by professors who want to shape better people, not just better students.

I’ll never forget Dr. Griffith’s comment during my freshman class of Foundations of Politics: “The purpose of this place is not just your education, but your habit formation.” The sentiment was echoed by professor after professor as I worked through my classes toward my degree. Lectures and assignments did more than teach material. They drew thoughts from me and developed desires in me. They formed me.

Now, on the cusp of graduating, I can confidently say that my success as a student has never been reduced to the numbers at the end of the semester. Rather, those people I most respect understand it through the character my learning produced.

Many colleges will give you an education. The King’s College will give you habit formation. The habits I came with, and the ones I developed along the way, have been shaped and broken by this community’s unique focus on character above all else. This place, these people, have given me a life-long principle: don’t settle for places that teach you; seek out ones that change you for the better.