Being a student at Pensacola Christian College has been…an interesting experience, to say the least. It hasn’t been anything like I expected. As a freshmen, I was terrified to get there, more because I was afraid of being thrown into the midst of 5,000 students and expected to somehow be social. Living full-time at PCC is definitely a culture shock, but let’s have some fun here. I won’t just tell you about this place. I’ll show you—through Gifs—what it’s like to be a student at the very conservative Pensacola Christian College.
This rule has only recently been changed, but since I had to live with it for two and a half years, I think it’s worth mentioning. No headphone allowed. The idea is that this keeps us accountable for the music we listen to, but of course we had them, anyway. They just had a permanent home under our pillows whenever we weren’t using them. And you couldn’t ever let the RA see them or you’d be written up. So if your RA was your roommate—sorry, you were out of luck when it came to this one.
“It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” We hear this all the time. My hat is off to anyone who tries to date on this campus. Men and women can’t have any physical contact. Period. Dating couples cannot do small thing like hug or even hold hands. Sometimes it feels like we have all developed an unhealthy phobia in some way of the opposite sex.
You really don’t know you break a rule in the Pathway—the student rulebook—until you do. We have all reached the consensus that it is probably better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Student Life is notorious for not hearing students’ cases and giving out demerits on a whim, although, with the recent change in staff members, this has gotten so much better. Members of Student Life wander all over campus—chaperoning the Commons, grounds, library, and other public places—to make sure that we are all following rules.
You may be dead tired at 10:30 p.m. and want nothing more than to finish up that paper you’ve been working on for the past five hours or even go to bed (imagine). Sorry, you’re out of luck. You’re a student at Pensacola Christian College, and you have to go to prayer group before you even think about going to bed. This is made up of four rooms of students per group (several prayer groups per floor) that are rounded up by the RAs at the end of Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday to pray for fifteen minutes. But no one actually does.
Heaven help the poor taxi driver or family passing through the college whenever church lets out because they have to brave the herd. With 7,000 campus church members and students combined, the campus streets get swarmed for five to ten minutes as we all rush from the church building back to our dorms and cars.
The question is: knee-length, ankle-length, or somewhere is between? So many choices, how can you choose just one? But if you choose knee-length, be warned: there’s an RA waiting at the door to check your clothes before you walk off to class. If it goes up above the knee even a little bit—demerits for you, my friend. This is one of the most relatable GIF’s of being a student at Pensacola Christian College.
We are a gated community—and I actually do understand why a little bit. Pensacola is a crime-city, and we have had several incidents happen to our students when they go off campus. But it also adds to our seclusion in our own community. If you’re like me and don’t have a car, you’re stuck on campus for over a hundred days at a time with only a shred of hope of getting off every once in a while. The second you leave campus and throw on a pair of jeans, the feeling is a mix of exhilaration and uncertainty. Because wouldn’t you know it, there’s a real world out there.
Couple to the left of me, couple to the right of me, couple in front of me—you really can’t escape couples. But as girls walk back to their dorms at night, they have to endure the sea of couples waiting all over the campanile and in front of their dorms (because girls can’t wait outside guys’ dorms, so they all just congregate in front of our dorms clogging up the sidewalks and doorways).
This is a real-life Footloose situation here. It doesn’t matter that David danced before the Lord and that there are multiple references in Scripture where dancing is encouraged as a form of worship. It apparently shouldn’t be done. Period. This is one of the funniest GIF’s of being a student at Pensacola Christian College.
Can you trust that your roommate won’t rat on you? If you have an RA, your job hiding the things you do just got a whole lot harder. But even if you don’t have an RA living in your room, there are still people who feel it is their duty to report you for the terrible things you do…like doing Zumba and playing country music out loud.
And there are so, so many more things I could show you, but I think that you get the picture. Like I said, being a student at Pensacola Christian College has definitely been an interesting learning experience. And we’ll leave it at that for now.
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