RACHEL MCFARLAND will make good use of her outgoing, laid-back personality as the music teacher she is studying to be and in her very first job, as a waitress at Cheddar’s in Gainesville. Rachel has a no-fail attitude about the challenge of balancing work and school. “It helps to schedule out my whole day to make sure I have time for everything and getting enough sleep. That’s important,” she says.

Rachel is accustomed to being busy. At Creekview High School in Ball Ground, Ga., she was in chorus, color guard, winter guard and the photography club. She was color guard captain and winter guard captain in her senior year. She participated in a number of honors choruses, a women’s trio and two musicals. At Brenau, she is a member of the Psychology Club, Love Every Orientation Club and the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. Add to this working at least five shifts a week and it is apparent that Rachel possesses serious time management skills.

Her motivation for adding the pressures of a job onto an already packed schedule of classes and leadership activities shows her sense of personal responsibility. “Servers make good money,” she says. “That’s what I need – especially being in a sorority. I didn’t want to make my parents pay for the whole thing. I wanted to help out.”

As a result, Rachel says she feels particularly fortunate to have received the Brenau Scholars scholarship. Without it she wouldn’t have been able to attend Brenau. “It was, like, if I don’t get it (the scholarship), I won’t be able to go here,” she says. “But then I got it, and I was really excited.”

The deciding factor in Rachel choosing to attend Brenau was its size. She loves the personal attention she gets from her professors. And she knew Brenau has an excellent music education program. “The staff people care so much about our getting the best education possible and getting jobs when we graduate,” she says.

Rachel was a bit “freaked out” at first by Brenau’s being an all-female school, but she kept hearing students say it helps them focus and get more done. Now she agrees. “Pretty soon,” she says, “you don’t even notice.”