By Deepika Azariah

Deepika (front row, purple dress) with her class at an AC formal event

Are you a junior? A freshman recently asked this of me.

“Uh, yes. Yes, I am!” This realization, that I’m an upperclassman, has taken a while to sink in. I remember being a freshman at Herbert W. Armstrong College like it was yesterday. But then the upperclassmen graduate, and you fill their shoes. Along with that, you look back on two years of experience, education and training.

So what’s it like?

A typical school day starts at 7 a.m., with breakfast. Mr. Willie Coats, Mr. John Krueger and his wife, Dawn, manage the AC kitchen. Along with a few AC students who work in the kitchen, they serve us a hearty breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and sunny-side up eggs, hash browns, turkey bacon, cereal, milk, smoothies, juice, toast, muffins and fruit. We also have a coffee, tea and teeccino station, which I’m quite fond of.

Breakfast fellowship at AC is quite unique compared to most other meals. Some students appear tired from having stayed up late the night before, while others seem perky from having had a full night’s rest. You’ll often see students studying for a quiz or bouncing scriptures off one another as they anticipate a pop quiz or two later in the day. But for all our stress, we know that we’ll be back for lunch having accomplished it all.

After breakfast, students head to their classrooms, some on foot, some on bikes, and the occasional upperclassman in a car. Being an upperclassman this year, most of my classes are at the Hall of Administration classroom, along with the seniors. The freshmen and sophomores classes are held in the Barbara Flurry Memorial Hall, also known as the men’s dorm.

Classes start at 8 a.m. for most students at AC and usually end around lunchtime. The typical junior class course load includes Epistles of Paul and Marriage and the Family with Mr. Stephen Flurry, General Epistles and Lessons From the Life Of Herbert W. Armstrong with Mr. Alex Harrison, Church History with Mr. Brian Davis, International Relations with Mr. Ron Fraser, and Foods for the women and Homiletics for the men. Some of us also take electives such as Agriculture, Macroeconomics, Comparative religion, etc.

The whole student body comes together once every week for an hour-long forum conducted by Dean of Students Stephen Flurry, the assistant dean, Mr. Eric Burns, or a guest speaker. This provides a good platform for Mr. Flurry to address the whole school at once and keep us on the same page, and also for students to raise any questions or concerns we might have.

After classes and lunch, every student participates in the student work-study program, which gives us a hands-on role to play in doing the Work. At the same time, the Church benefits from the additional laborers. Being an upperclassman carries the additional responsibility of setting the right example in work ethic and having the right kind of zeal to exceed job expectations.

Most AC juniors work at the Hall of Administration in departments such as Editorial, News Bureau, Foreign Language, Accounting, Festival, etc; or at the Mail Processing Center in the mail fulfillment center or television, information technology or audio duplication department, etc. This vital training helps develop the whole person as we students strive to put into practice on the job what we learn at school.

Dinner at AC is between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Students relax and unwind over dinner and plan activities for the evening. Our evenings are unusually torn between homework, studies, sports, dates, movies, workouts, laundry, and long chats for the girls while we bake treats for some of these occasions.

Occasionally a basketball game at night leads to the faculty and local members from the Edmond congregation coming together with the AC students for some fun. AC students also have numerous occasions to fellowship and serve the Edmond congregation through the Philadelphia Club.

During a school night, AC students observe quiet time in the dorm at 10 p.m. and curfew at 11 p.m. These rules have been set by the college administration to make our time here at college as productive as possible. It also helps us to be mindful of others and always strive to live peaceably with our fellow students. In doing so we build friendships that will last all eternity—and have a lot of fun!

Having been through our freshman and sophomore years here at AC, being a junior now is doubly rewarding not only because of two years of AC experience, but also because we are now in a position to give back to the underclassmen what we received over the past two years.

Underclassmen and upperclassmen offer so much to each other here at AC. Together we learn from each other and about each other, especially since we hail from so many different parts of the U.S. and from around the world. The student body age ranges from age 18 to 28, giving us the benefit of the experiences that these years offer.

Being a student at AC helps us gain more than just an education. We gain friends, role models, experiences, serving opportunities, a better work ethic and more. As juniors at the college we gain the opportunity to look out for the underclassmen and at the same time look up to our seniors and graduates. It’s sort of like a give-and-take relationship, where we all benefit from each other. With iron sharpening iron we strive together to live by the motto of Herbert W. Armstrong College: Education With Vision!