The news cycle often becomes discouraging, a daily catalog of a world so broken by sin. Having a strong biblical worldview has made all the difference for Charissa Crotts. She graduated from Boyce College in 2018 and shortly thereafter began interning at WORLD Magazine under editor-in-chief Marvin Olasky.
Crotts first came to Boyce in the fall of 2014, pursuing a degree that she hoped would help her become a better writer.
“I thought about going to a college where I could major in English or creative writing, but I thought Boyce was the best place for me to learn about the Bible and grow as a Christian,” she said in an interview late last year. “Since I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do after college, I figured studying biblical counseling would be useful wherever I ended up.”
While at Boyce, Crotts worked as a housekeeper for the on-campus hotel, and in her second semester, she had the chance to intern as a journalist for the Office of Communications.
“I loved writing stories growing up, and I wrote for my school newspaper in high school,” Crotts said. “When I came to Boyce, I looked for opportunities to practice and grow in my writing, and that led to the journalism internship in the communications office.”
“Those sorts of skills were transferring into journalism and Boyce helped me learn to be curious and love to learn.”
Her classes pushed to refine her writing, as did her internship and subsequent freelance work for the Office of Communications. In May of 2017, Charissa followed the recommendation of colleagues in communications to attend the WORLD Journalism Institute hosted by WORLD, and after the weeklong intensive, she was offered an internship in Austin, Texas. Since then, Crotts has written several stories, including a report on the aftermath of the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2018 and a groundbreaking investigation into Liberty University’s journalism program.
Crotts says that her time at Boyce College was instrumental in preparing her for her current work at WORLD.
“I think my biblical counseling degree at Boyce was really helpful in just learning to ask good questions and look at body language and communicate clearly and put things together,” she said. “So those sorts of skills were transferring into journalism and Boyce helped me learn to be curious and love to learn. I think it also gave me a good biblical worldview, which is really helpful for writing stories and also just for looking at the world with all the bad things I’m learning about. Learning to trust God’s sovereignty and understanding the gospel has been really hopeful just for my soul as I’ve been doing the work so far.”
Thinking about how her time at Boyce prepared her for her own career, Crott’s encouragement to Boyce students is to invest their time in joining a local church and understanding the skills they acquire now may make all the difference in just a few years after graduation.
“It’s important not to just let Boyce act like a church for you, but to actually commit to a church and build relationships with people who aren’t just your same age and get discipleship while you’re in college,” she said. “I would just encourage students to really do well in their classes and not just slack off, because it’s really a good chance to develop skills that they might use later.”