Surprisingly, Barbara Güldenring ‘02 is one of those people. “While still a high school student, I had had my heart set on going to Messiah College because of the excellent opportunities for students to go abroad and experience the world,” said Güldenring. “As a language person, it was always a dream of mine to delve into a new culture and language and Messiah College helped me fulfill that dream in a big way.” With a degree in German, Güldenring is now lecturer and researcher in linguistics at a German university, and is in the final stages of completing her Ph.D. thesis in cognitive linguistics. She resides in Marburg, Germany with her husband. Güldenring says an education at Messiah is the foundation for her present career in many ways. “Besides the excellent education I have received in German language and literature, I really enjoyed and profited from the teacher training courses, especially the TESOL classes I took,” said Güldenring. “In recent semesters I have taught similar classes and have often taken recourse to the things I learned to enhance my own teaching.” In advising students how to reach their career goals, she said, “Trust that God will direct your steps to the place He wants to you to be.”