If you haven’t experienced both sides, you wouldn’t know. You hear horror stories, but is it reality?

I enrolled at The Ohio State University with 7,000 other entering freshmen. Our opening convocation was held in the 105,000-seat Ohio Stadium. I lived in the stadium dormitories, Buckeye 3-North, with 17 other guys. My chemistry lecture came from a professor in an amphitheater way down front speaking into a lapel mic.

They tried to force me to take military training; Ohio State is a land-grant college where ROTC training is mandatory. The lights were turned out at midnight each night, but we did not have to be in our rooms. It was different in the ladies' dorm. They had to be in by 11:00 p.m.

Guys came home late with noise and rowdiness due to the beer-drinking contests they participated in at the North or South Heidelberg taverns. If you had prayer before leaving your room, that was the only prayer on campus. If you came back to your room on Sabbath afternoons, there might be a Big Ten Conference football game going on over your head in the stadium. Cool? Nope! I dropped out before finishing my first year.

Years later, after completing a bachelor's degree, I entered the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University. Tom Blincoe, associate dean of the Seminary, took me into his office, knelt down, and prayed for me. I lived in Garland Apartments, 3-C, where it was quiet and conducive for study. Every class began with prayer.

Fellow seminarians gathered in my apartment to eat beans and cornbread; we discussed how to make a church board agenda and how to make proper visits in hospitals. The Sabbath was truly a delight because everybody went to church—well, almost everybody. There was no mandatory military training because we were all conscientious objectors, or more correctly, non-combatants willing to save lives, but not take lives.

Oh, yes! There was football on Sundays. It was flag football, played on the field across from Lamson Hall. You could focus on studies because no one was aspiring to make the team and one day become a pro in the National Football League.

Yes, there is a tremendous difference in these fine universities. I later studied at the University of Pittsburgh, University of Kentucky, and I returned to The Ohio State University to finish what I had started 30 years before. My grandson, Walter Wright III, was there with me to collect my diploma, along with 1,700 others in my social and behavioral science class.

What do I remember most about Ohio State? Wishing I could see the Buckeyes play on Saturday. What do I remember most about Andrews? I recall with great gratitude a godly dean who prayed for me with great tears running down his cheeks. He was pleading with God to direct my path and one day make me useful in His service. Guess who won that one!