First Year Small Groups
We are all being formed, in one way or another, throughout our life. Your spiritual formation and personal development are important to us, and small groups like this are one way we seek to help you grow in this area. As an undergraduate at one of the best liberal-arts colleges in the country, you should be asking big, critical questions, the answers to which will help shape your life for the better. You may find that participating in a small group will help you ask those kinds of questions, and find satisfactory answers.
Why Do These Small Groups Exist?
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” (Ranier Rilke)
In a recent essay about students at elite colleges in the United States, David Brooks observes that, “Most of all, I met students who had never really thought about how they wanted to spend their lives.” One student put it this way, “I don’t want to spend my entire college career chasing something that I’m not sure I want.”
Students tend to focus on the task immediately in front of them, and then move on to the next one. Opportunities for unhurried personal reflection and important, but non-academic, discussion are rare. The goal of this program is to provide just such opportunities. We try to create an environment in which students can take a break from their busy, get-it-done-now schedule and start thinking and talking about some interesting, complex questions. Questions about life, God, college, faith, people, and much more.
Think of it as a pause button you hit once a week for two hours.
We can’t guarantee that you’ll find great answers to the questions we talk about, but we’re pretty confident that just thinking about the questions will help you make better decisions about how you want to spend your time, both here at Westmont and after you graduate. Plus you get to meet and come to know some great people along the way; people you wouldn’t normally meet or see living right next to you.
How Do The Small Groups Work?
Small groups of students (8-10 students in each group) meet once a week for approximately two hours. Groups are led by upperclassmen and are made up of randomly-assigned first year students from both Page and Clark halls. There are also groups for transfer students led by former transfer students.
Sounds Great, How Do I Join?
To sign up, contact the Orientation office. We’ll be in touch!