What if You Struggle to Find Your Community in College? One Student’s Experience

“Everyone says how much they love it at Cumberlands, so why don’t I? There has to be something I’m missing.”

Hannah Engel loved University of the Cumberlands from the moment she first stepped onto campus for a visit. But after she enrolled, she found herself wanting to leave.

The college hadn’t changed. But Hannah’s experience of it had, and figuring out why would eventually change the way she approached college altogether.

This Was Supposed to Work

Hannah Engel, a biology and chemistry double major from Walton, Kentucky, came to Cumberlands with a plan.

She had originally committed to play soccer, but after tearing her ACL during her senior year of high school, soccer—and the athletic scholarship she had been counting on—were no longer part of that plan.

Hannah considered whether she should attend somewhere else. In the end, though, her heart was already set on Cumberlands.

“I toured five or six other schools,” she said. “There were people just out on the field playing Spikeball or playing sand volleyball. I loved the campus. I loved the small town, the mountains. I fell in love with the community. Everyone was so nice.”

It was hard, she said, to find another university that came close.

Still, Hannah’s vision for college had already changed before she arrived. Soccer was supposed to be a defining part of her experience. Without it, she would have to find her place in a different way.

A Bumpy Start

During her visits, community at Cumberlands had seemed almost effortless. Students were outside playing games. People appeared happy to be there. Hannah could picture herself among them.

Actually becoming part of that community proved more difficult.

“At first, I really struggled to find friends,” she said.

Hannah was younger than many of the students in some of her upper-level courses, which sometimes left her feeling out of place. She also found that building new friendships took time and patience as she adjusted to campus life and a new academic environment.

Over time, the disconnect between the college experience she had imagined and the one she was actually having began to wear on her.

Eventually, Hannah called home.

“I just feel like I have no friends," she remembers telling her dad. 

Her dad told her that if she needed to come home, they would figure it out.

“I’m Sticking It Out”

For Hannah, leaving wasn’t the answer.

“I’m sticking it out,” she decided.

Looking back, Hannah points to two things that changed what happened next: her mindset and her behavior.

Hannah didn’t overhaul her life overnight. She started with small, deliberate choices. She went to campus events. She attended sporting events. She said hello to people she didn’t know. When she went to the cafeteria, she made an effort to sit with someone new.

That wasn’t always what she felt like doing.

“Is it going to be difficult to go to an event when I’m tired, and I already had class? Probably for a little bit,” she said. “But then I’m going to meet someone new, and then I’m going to see them out doing whatever, and I can stop and have a conversation with them.”

Over time, she joined organizations like the Student Philanthropy Association, participated in Bible studies and other faith communities, and continued meeting people outside her immediate circle.

“I changed my mindset. I changed my environment,” Hannah said. “Everything completely changed.”

Familiar Faces Become Community

The change didn’t happen all at once.

One event became one person Hannah knew. One person became someone she could wave to across campus. Eventually, familiar faces became people she could sit beside in the caf or stop and talk with between classes.

“Now I go anywhere, and I see people I know,” she said. “I’ve found great friends.”

Hannah hadn’t discovered a secret to college life. She had simply learned that, for her, belonging required some participation.

The community she remembered from her first visits to Cumberlands had been there all along. But this time, she wasn’t watching it from the outside. She was becoming part of it.

She Found Community in an Unexpected Place

Some of the community Hannah had been looking for was also waiting between classes around three small tables in the chemistry department.

Students crowd around them to study, talk, or play chess. The department secretary sometimes brings in snacks. Professors walking through might stop to talk with students or watch a chess game for a few minutes.

Often, Hannah said, the conversations have nothing to do with science.

“The faculty and staff have cultivated such a familial environment that the students cling to it,” she said. “The chemistry department has done such a good job of just being so warm and welcoming and calming.”

Those relationships also follow students into the classroom and beyond it.

Hannah describes professors who make time for one-on-one conversations, help students navigate complicated class schedules, and connect them with opportunities beyond Cumberlands. One of her chemistry professors, Dr. Tan, has worked with Hannah in organic chemistry and supported her pursuit of summer research opportunities.

For Hannah, that investment matters because she isn’t interested in simply passing a course. She wants to understand the material well enough to use it in a future career.

“They want you to succeed,” Hannah said. “They do not want you to fail. They will do anything in their power to make sure that you come out successful and that you actually comprehend the content.”

But some of the moments that have mattered most to Hannah happen outside the coursework.

Her professors remember conversations with her family. They ask about her life. They know the person sitting in their classroom, not only the student completing an assignment.

“They don’t just build relationships with you through chemistry,” Hannah said. “They want to know who you are as a person.”

To Those Who Haven’t Found Their People

There was a point when Hannah wondered why everyone else seemed to love Cumberlands when she didn’t.

She wondered whether she was missing something. She told her family she felt out of place. Going home was a real option.

Today, she describes a very different college experience.

The first version of Hannah’s college experience wasn’t the final one.

Sometimes struggling means something needs to change. For Hannah, the answer wasn’t changing universities. It was changing how she engaged with the community around her.

She started showing up. She met people. Familiar faces became friends. And she found places where she felt known.

Eventually, the campus Hannah had fallen in love with on her first visit started to feel like hers, too.