Serayah Peters' Story

I’m a senior Music Education major with an emphasis on Choral Studies, and I’m from Clyde, Texas.

Whenever I was in high school, I was heavily involved in the all-state choir process. Hardin-Simmons has a choir camp every year, and I came to this choir camp for four years throughout high school. I just fell in love with the place.

I loved the choir directors. I love the voice faculty. They’ve just really shown me how much I love music and gave me a greater appreciation for it.

Hardin-Simmons motto is “Education Enlightened by Faith,” and I feel like the school of music really plays into that. Our choir director, he always tells us that what we’re singing is glorifying God all the time.

Getting to come here at HSU and be able to make use of the talents that He gave us, but also be able to glorify Him and make it about Him, is really awesome. Our voice teachers will just sit down with us, they’ll pray over us, and they’ll speak encouraging, inspiring words into us.

In our music history class, we learn about how music has evolved throughout the years, and at the very beginning it started off as worship. That’s still one of the biggest reasons why we have music today.

I think one of the biggest things that makes Hardin-Simmons special is the faculty. They’re absolutely amazing, and we couldn’t do anything without them. They know I’m from the school of music, and these teachers really care about us and anything that we do.

Hardin-Simmons has really prepared me for anything that I need to do. I’m a music education major, but I also love performing, and so I actually direct music at Clyde High School every fall semester with their musicals. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it weren’t for HSU. Anything that I’ve learned from my voice teachers, from my choir directors – just from classes in general – really factors into everything that I’m doing, and I really feel prepared.

Hardin-Simmons is my home away from home.