Student Feature: Solenn AnceauPrieur
Solenn AnceauPrieur became a commuter student in the Fall of 2023. Solenn had grown up in France and only moved to the United States in July of 2022 where she lived in California with her mom. It wasn’t until 2023 that she visited a variety of schools on the East Coast and through touring the campus she felt drawn to Liberty University.
One of the biggest draws was the degree program that Liberty offered. Solenn wanted to pursue a business degree and Liberty’s master’s degree in business administration felt like the right fit for her. It helped that the program didn’t require a previous business undergrad degree which was a major bonus for Solenn in making her decision.
After graduating she hopes to use her degree to go into real estate. Through her career, her ambition is to sell properties to those in France who want to invest in the United States.
Solenn had grown up catholic. However, she shared that in France when you go to the catholic church there are many there who don’t have a real faith. Her true walk with Christ began in 2021. She had seen many Christians on social media sharing about reading the Bible and discussing their relationship with Jesus. This inspired her to read as well.
“Once I started reading the Bible everything made so much sense in my mind and it gave me so much peace. That’s when I started to go to church. There wasn’t just 1 day where I gave my life to Jesus. It was just a slow process of growing closer where I saw a difference in my life” Solenn said.
This journey was also a big reason behind choosing Liberty as she liked the idea of being at a Christian college.
Solenn shared that college and her time attending Liberty has taught her a lot of personal lessons.
“I’ve learned resilience and patience. Through the process of adapting to new teachers and learning their requirements,” Solenn shared.
One of Solenn’s first experiences with being a commuter began before the semester started where she attended the first-year commuter retreat that went to D.C. for a day.
“It was amazing. I had such a fun day and I met one of my best friends on the trip. She is getting married soon and I will be one of her bridesmaids. I had never been to DC before, so it was a good opportunity to have one day to discover DC. My favorite thing to see on the trip was the Museum of National Art” Solenn said.
She shared that her experience as a commuter has been overall good. She enjoys the freedom that comes with being a commuter and her favorite perk is having her own kitchen as she loves to cook.
Advice to Commuters
“My main advice to other commuters is to try and find housing not too far from campus. When you’re 15 minutes away it can become difficult coming to campus and not accounting for traffic or accidents. I encourage them to go to events like the first-year retreat. It makes connecting so much easier” Solenn said.