James Ritchhart

“I plan to either go to seminary to receive a master’s in divinity, or I will be going to graduate school for linguistic anthropology. However, what I am most excited about after college is marrying my beautiful fiancée!”

“There are a lot of great faculty at Carthage. Many professors will encourage you to think and grow and will help you along and support you while you’re navigating a new life. During my time at Carthage, I have looked to my advisors for help in my success. I find that the more you communicate with the people around you, the more you will get out of life, including college.”

“The History of Photography with Professor Joshua McGowen, or The History of Jazz with Professor James Ripley. I realize that neither are within my major, but they were so much fun, and I learned just an incredible amount from those professors. 10/10 would recommend both.

“Also, when you’re looking for a lab science course, try to get Kevin Morris for chemistry. He made learning about chemistry fascinating.”

“My freshman year, I was involved with basically every club on campus. It was a great experience, and I met a lot of people and tried a lot of things by doing that. Especially if you were a commuter like I was, I would highly recommend trying out as many clubs as you can fit into your schedule your first year.

“The only clubs I really stayed a part of throughout my time at Carthage were French Club and Intervarsity. If you are a Christian coming to Carthage, I would highly recommend you get involved with InterVarsity. They are a great group of people devoted to following God.”

“I did a J-Term study tour to Costa Rica, spent three months studying French abroad in France, wrote a research paper on the decolonization of Senegal, and I performed a French play directed by Professor Pascal Rollet.”

“I think my fondest memories are of the friends that I found at Carthage. I had a car because I was a commuter, and I would drive my whole friend group around town in my 2007 Subaru Forester. I also met my future wife at Carthage because we were both in Data Science Club and InterVarsity.”

“I can’t say my favorite because it’s hidden, and if everyone knew about it then it would be crowded too often, so you’ll have to find that on your own. But one of my favorite spots was simply anywhere that there was a chair capable of facing the lake. I could read or do homework in those places for hours.”

“The French and IPE majors at Carthage are some of the most interesting and eye-opening majors at Carthage. French is spoken on every continent in the world and is a major language of Europe and Africa. The French professors taught French culture, literature, politics, colonialism, food, regions, and many different dialects.

“Likewise, IPE takes you through the entire world and how it interacts. It combines history, philosophy, politics, and economics, among various other studies, and asks the question, ‘how do they all relate?’ The two majors are challenging in different ways, and you have to be self-motivated to get through. These majors are not straightforward, so I would encourage you to think about if you want to study areas that are not definite.”

“Carthage was extremely appealing to me because of the Modern Languages Department. I went to Costa Rica on a J-Term trip and studied abroad for three months in France. I knew they had a strong language department, and since I wanted to major in French, I thought that it would be a great fit.”