Exhausted from a weekend of partying and piled up with the mountains of homework and reading he had ignored for weeks, Hyesung Oh found himself unable to put on his Sunday’s best and make his way to church.

“When I entered college, I was kind of sick of everything, in terms of God and my faith and the Christian community,” he says. “I felt like a big part of me was missing. I kind of lived with it and tried to ignore it freshman year.”

Oh’s life took a major turn after Halloween his sophomore year. Feeling sick from the night’s festivities, he ran out of an El train and bent over the tracks-just seconds before an incoming train emerged. Luckily his friends pulled him out of the way before anything traumatic happened. Still he couldn’t just shake off the terror from that night.

Even though Oh was so sick he didn’t leave his bed for the following week, he describes that period as one of the best weeks of his life. “I spent a lot of time trying to recover, trying to pray and see where God was leading me.”

Now a junior Oh goes to church every Sunday, leads weekly Bible studies for Asian-American InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and considers his relationship with God one of the most important things in his life.

While promiscuous sex, drug use and binge drinking seem to be one and the same with the typical college experience, some students are resisting these temptations and choosing religion instead. A 2004 UCLA study about spirituality in higher education showed 60 percent of the students surveyed maintained a strong commitment or strengthened their commitment to religion, while the remainder either maintained a low commitment or decreased the strength of their commitment.

For Communication senior Benjamin Singer, staying religious throughout college was an easy choice. He attended Jewish schools until eighth grade and has gone to synagogue at least once a week for his whole life. On campus, he is a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity, and has missed only five or six services his entire time at Northwestern.

“It’s a very important part of my education and my identity,” he says.

When coming to college, the expectations and pressures that come from party situations is something Singer, who was never much of a partier, found himself uncomfortable with. Instead he describes his idea of a good time as “playing board games, playing outside or going to get milkshakes.”

But that’s not to say the temptation for other students doesn’t exist-drinking is both an easy way to meet people on campus and relieve the stress that comes from all-nighters and flunked exams. Between the many academic and social commitments, finding time to meet religious expectations is something that many students don’t have the time-or desire-to do.

“Northwestern’s a really academically intense, fast-paced environment,” Oh says. “It’s really hard to balance academics, your social life, your work, your internships. (Being lax about religion) is a consequence of this environment.”

Campus Rabbi Josh Feigelson thinks NU could do a better job encouraging its students to value the exploration of religion.

“It’s certainly not viewed as important as getting a job after college or getting A’s in all of your courses,” he says. “I think that there’s a natural part of being 18, 19 and 20 for critically examining what you’ve grown up with.” Rabbi Feigelson thinks methods such as course credit, not just from a historical perspective, could potentially be very valuable.

Ultimately, religion remains to be a personal experience, whether a person opts out of it or not.