Staying Connected

The Bethany Lutheran College Alumni Office is your connection to Bethany! We organize special alumni events, keep you informed about what's going on at Bethany, and help you to connect with your former classmates and friends.

Alumni reunions and homecoming are held during Bethany's Fall Festival weekend. Many events for the entire family occur during Fall Festival weekend. Take in a soccer game, attend Theatre Physics or Arts on the Green, and enjoy the company of alumni and friends.

Printed Alumni Directory

Bethany Lutheran College is compiling a printed directory of alumni. The directory provides a great way for you to reconnect with classmates and be listed with your fellow Bethany alums. Click here for more information.

Browse the Directory

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News

The journey to find a career path
Friday, December 18, 2009

Sarah Harstad

Do you remember the process of selecting a college? The mail you receive for years before, the dreams, the applications, the financial aid forms. Sometimes we think the choice is perfect, just to get there and discover that after all that work, we were wrong.

After going through a similar process, Scott Fairbanks quickly began to search for a new school: “Bethany was a great school right down the road that allowed me time and opportunities for transitioning from my uncertain career path, while providing a Christian education in a tight-knit community environment. I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to end up. Bethany provided me with the time, and more importantly, the options, to decide what to do with my life.”

I first met Scott as a student worker during the annual Phone-a-thon. An energetic and fun caller, Scott was still grappling with selecting a major. So how did he get from a Phone-a-thon student just adjusting to Bethany to working as an Aerospace Engineer at Mercer Engineering Research Center in Warner Robins, Georgia?

Scott first credits guidance from faculty and staff. “The registrar at the time, Jean Wiechmann, sat down with me in the type of one-on-one student/teacher interaction that I would eventually become spoiled with (and even take for granted) at Bethany. We analyzed my gifts as well as my likes and dislikes, and through her guidance, I realized that the engineering program was best for me.”

The engineering major is a program that begins with three years on the Bethany campus followed by two years at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Scott describes his transition to the University:
“The most obvious difference was size. Bethany was a small, close-knit community. If you didn’t recognize somebody when you passed them on campus, odds were it was because they didn’t actually go to Bethany. The University of Minnesota was quite different, spanning over two cities and a river. If you recognized anybody at all, it was a good day!

The biggest transition, however, was the environment. To go from a small Lutheran college where a good majority of my peers not only shared my morals, but also my faith, to the University was quite the culture shock, to say the least.”

Scott continued commenting on the differences in his educational experience. “All of the core classes that I took at Bethany (calculus, physics, statistics and dynamics, chemistry, and computer programming, to name a few…) were the basis for my entire education at the U. Had I taken those classes at the University itself, I don’t think I would have come out with as good of an understanding of the fundamental principles of engineering that I received from Bethany.

The small class sizes and commitment of the faculty and staff to their students was critical to my understanding of these fundamentals. Dr. MacPherson’s ethics course prepared me to speak intelligently to my peers in my community at the University about ethical dilemmas from multiple standpoints, using Scripture as my own personal background, but not as my basis for argument.”

So with all of this education completed, I wondered about Scott’s experience with Mercer. “We are basically subcontractors for the United States Air Force. I currently do structural support and analysis for the HH-60 Pave-hawk helicopter, a very slight variation of the more commonly recognized ‘Blackhawk’.”

“I am very proud of the education that I received at the University of Minnesota, but more importantly, I’ll always be a [Bethany] Viking. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of my time spent at Bethany and the impact that the faculty, staff, and students had on me and my life. God bless BLC!”