{"id":33,"date":"2017-03-29T00:09:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T00:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/?p=33"},"modified":"2017-04-14T17:24:52","modified_gmt":"2017-04-14T17:24:52","slug":"from-skeptic-to-servant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/2017\/03\/29\/from-skeptic-to-servant\/","title":{"rendered":"FROM SKEPTIC TO SERVANT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Rebecca Riley, \u201917,\u00a0<\/strong> School of Engineering<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who knows me can attest that I am perennially running ten minutes late. It was no different when I rolled into the Crawford House \u201cMeet the Candidates\u201d meeting last August. I checked out the board with the names of the candidates and, to my total surprise, saw my name amongst them for&#8230; what was that? House service commissioner?<\/p>\n<p>At the time, I was coming to Vanderbilt off of a very successful, not to mention stressful, senior year. Service was the last thing on my mind. Yet once again I found myself getting roped into another altruistic activity. I was not happy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Serving Others\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2446\/2017\/03\/RebeccaRiley.jpg\" alt=\"Rebecca Riley\" width=\"250\" height=\"279\" \/>It wasn\u2019t until I put service into the broader perspective of the Vanderbilt experience that I began to realize the importance of being both a servant and a student. Service provides a crucial channel for validating the freshman journey. It helps each of us answer the question that suffuses our actions, our motivations, and our very existence: Why are we here? Service allows us to put our experiences here at Vanderbilt into perspective: All the hard work that we put into our education becomes meaningful when we perceive our degrees as tools with which we may serve others.<\/p>\n<p>The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons provides a forum for all freshmen to delve into the critical issues of the college experience. The spirit of The Commons is all about addressing these questions in a profound and meaningful way, a way that cannot avoid service to others. Indeed, you may find that, in convincing yourself that service is worthwhile, you discover where your life has meaning as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rebecca Riley, \u201917,\u00a0 School of Engineering Anyone who knows me can attest that I am perennially running ten minutes late. It was no different when I rolled into the Crawford House \u201cMeet the Candidates\u201d meeting last August. I checked out the board with the names of the candidates and, to my total surprise, saw my&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,14],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-school-of-engineering","tag-vu2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/commons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}