When Adrian came to Principia College on a visiting weekend during his senior year of high school, he thought he had already made up his mind not to come here. “I had decided that I was going to major in performance cello and needed a big school with a conservatory,” he says. At the end of the weekend, Adrian even told his ambassadors that he had a great time, but that he would not be applying. But things changed. “Well, as it turns out, I did some praying and thinking and came to the conclusion that studying music wasn’t for me. Then, all of a sudden, Principia was an option and I did want to go there. Much to my ambassadors’ surprise, I came in the fall, and even started working in the admissions office as an ambassador to help other students find out just how cool Principia is.
“It took me months to stop thinking about the fact that everyone around me was a Christian Scientist. Being in a public high school can make you feel like you’re the only CSer on the planet, or at least in the school, and it was awesome to be so surrounded by the Christian Science atmosphere here.”
Having grown up close to downtown Columbus, Ohio, Adrian wasn’t sure about suddenly living an hour outside a city — especially without transportation. He soon found, however, that he had nothing to worry about. “I thought I might feel isolated or bored far from the city and without a car, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I quickly had more options, activities, and ways to spend my time than was humanly possible. Soon I was singing in the choir, playing cello in the orchestra, writing for the newspaper, singing in an a capella group, participating in the Christian Science Organization, playing a role in student government in my dorm, working a job on campus, running a ballroom dancing club and teaching dance lessons — and still somehow finding time to do my homework.”
Adrian graduated in 2007 with a degree in history and saw a lot of the world in the process. “These are the cities I got to visit as a student: Prague, Salzburg, Zurich, Vienna, Paris, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hiroshima (and many in between). How did I do it? Well, I had a really big interest in travel and learning more about the world, and the Principia Abroad! program did the rest. Nothing beats the instant gratification of exploring firsthand the country you’re learning about.”
When he isn’t exploring new countries, Adrian makes as much use of Principia’s 2600 acres as he can: “If you can’t reach me for any reason it’s probably because I’m on my bike zooming through the woods or around the country side.”
Email: adrian.allen@principia.edu
