Hey Everyone! Sorry this has taken me almost two weeks to get around to but we ALL know how beginnings and endings of the school year are. Between the rush of getting to see all my friends and classmates again I have the extremely exciting opportunity of having lovely new modmates this year. But first let me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Melissa Nicole Volk (Melissa Nicole for Facebook’s sake) and I am a junior here at Bethel College. I was born in the town of Newton, went to a Catholic school and then to the public high school in Newton also. Yes, I would consider myself a true Newton Railroader through and through and now I have expanded my lines of alliance with the Threshers. I have been at Bethel for all of my college days and I love it here. I am so excited to be back!! My focus of study is Natural Sciences, with an emphasis in Biology, I also am getting minors in Chemistry and Business. The plan is to find out exactly what medical field I will fall in love with and then continue my studies in medical/dentistry school. Besides classes, I am very involved with life on our campus. Each week you can find me at a variety of things. I play on the varsity volleyball and track teams. I am involved with Bible Study, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, reading in Chapel for Dale, and other things that catch my eye from week to week. I also work for the Football Department and help out my Biology professors with their research. I would like to say that I have very unique hobbies but in reality they are like most people my age. I love to hang out with my friends, watch movies, go out to eat, have game nights, be active outdoors and just in general have a good time with those that I surround myself with. Now this has been pretty hard recently because volleyball takes up all my time and energy but I try my best to always stay busy! So by this point I am hoping you are wondering why I chose Bethel. I get asked this a lot when people find out that I grew up in Newton and I have summarized it to one statement for this point in time: Bethel gave me opportunities to grow up spiritually, mentally, and emotionally that I could not turn down. When you have a good thing close to home right in front of your face…why would you go look for something else? If you stay around you will hear me elaborate on these thoughts at a later date (when my physics homework is not calling my name). Overall I just want you to know how happy I am that the new school year is here and well under way. I am ecstatic to get back into the swing of things and do not want to be anywhere else in the world then here, being a Thresher with my friends and enjoying every day of it.