What First-Year Students Teach Us: Reflections on the Latest Bulldog Mindset Episode
Every semester, no matter how long I’ve worked in higher education, I’m reminded of the same quiet truth: students will always show you something new if you’re willing to listen. Our most recent episode of The Bulldog Mindset, a conversation with first-year students Kennedy Cole and Audrey James, offered exactly that kind of insight. Their honesty, hopefulness, and vulnerability made this one of the most genuine windows into the early college experience I’ve had on the podcast.
And it struck me in a different way, especially coming just a few weeks after my episode with two seniors, students who were nearing the end of their journey and reflecting on leadership, discipline, and personal growth shaped through years of experience. That contrast, placed side by side, says so much about who our students are and how they grow.
From “Day One” Uncertainty to Finding a Sense of Belonging
Kennedy and Audrey arrived at Gardner-Webb with the mixture of excitement and uncertainty that defines the first semester. Both came in as business majors, not because business was their calling, but (for Audrey) because it felt like the “safe” answer when adults asked the familiar question: What do you want to major in?
Within weeks, they discovered something different tugging at them. Audrey shifted to general biology, pulled by a love of the outdoors and her FFA experiences. Kennedy found her path in nursing after realizing she needed a people-centered, service-oriented career.
I’ve heard countless versions of this story over the years, but hearing it in real time, from two students in the opening chapters of their college journey, reminded me how much courage it takes to say, “I thought I wanted this, but now I know I need something else.”
That courage is a familiar theme. Our seniors shared a parallel story several weeks ago: the courage to commit, pivot, and adapt. Their wisdom came from the long arc of experience. For Kennedy and Audrey, the arc is just beginning—but the instinct to adjust, reflect, and grow is already there.
Small Moments, Big Meaning
Both students shared moments that clearly mattered more than the events themselves:
- Audrey auditioning for a theater production despite social anxiety.
- Kennedy enrolling in a theater class she’d always wanted to try but never had room for in high school.
These were small moments that signaled something bigger: that college is a place where identity is tested, stretched, and strengthened, sometimes in a classroom, sometimes on a stage, and sometimes simply by walking into a room and saying, “I’m going to try.”
When I think back to the episode with our seniors, they described similar experiences, but with the weight of time behind them: ROTC workouts before dawn, leadership responsibilities, academic and personal discipline. Listening to Kennedy and Audrey describe these early attempts—their first auditions, first class discussions, first moments of independence, you can almost hear the beginning of the same arc forming. Small acts of bravery accumulate, and over time, they shape a student’s confidence as profoundly as any major milestone.
Faith, Identity, and the Backpack They Carry
The “What’s in Your Backpack?” segment, our new special feature for Season 2, opened a deeper window into how both students see themselves. They both named faith. Not in a scripted way. Not in a polished way. In an honest, lived way.
Audrey described wanting to show love for God through her kindness.
Kennedy talked about reading scripture to stay grounded in a season of transition and uncertainty.
Years from now, when these two look back at what shaped them, academically, personally, spiritually…. I think this will be one of those anchor points.
And in an unexpected parallel, our senior guests talked about the same thing: the values they carried, the people who shaped them, the lessons they learned through adversity and leadership. Seniors bring seasoned confidence. First-year students bring raw sincerity. But the through-line between them is unmistakable.
The Power of Place, People, and Proximity
Kennedy and Audrey spoke often about the comfort of a small campus, the accessibility of faculty, the ease of taking risks because the environment feels safe and personal. They didn’t describe Gardner-Webb as a perfect place. They described it as a human place.
When Audrey mentioned the pride she felt simply standing on the stage in Dover Theatre for her audition…
When Kennedy described feeling most herself in the classroom because she wasn’t lost in a crowd…
When both spoke about meeting people, being supported by advisors, and finding spaces where they could breathe…
Those moments reveal something we often forget:
Students build their college experience out of dozens of tiny, human interactions that many of us would never think twice about.
In the senior episode, the stakes were different: leadership roles, ROTC training, academic rigor, preparation for careers, and service. But the foundation was the same, relationships, belonging, and the belief that faculty and staff were in their corner.
Lessons They’re Already Learning
As we ended the conversation, I asked what lessons they would offer the next Bulldog. Their answers were simple and deeply true:
- Talk to people.
- Get out of your room.
- Don’t rush your future.
- Focus on the present.
- Budget your flex dollars.
- Make your own experience.
- Don’t be ashamed of who you are.
- The experience is what you make it.
The seniors said something remarkably similar in their episode: take risks, learn from mistakes, lean into relationships, be willing to grow.
Different ages. Different experiences. Different stages of their academic journey.
But the same core wisdom.